


this town ain't big enough for the two of us

by delurks



Series: beyond the borderlands [6]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe, Borderlandscast, Burns, Forced Mutilation, Gen, Guilt, Guns, Implied Past Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness, Unfortunate Implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delurks/pseuds/delurks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ambivalence (noun): a state where one has mixed or conflicting ideas, beliefs, feelings or attitudes about someone, often simultaneously.</p><p>zylus and daltos peacefully coexist. or attempt to. aka, the fic where people think they're going to kill each other when it's a lot more complicated than that. picks up from zylus' point of view in chapter seven of 'the last vault hunter'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this town ain't big enough for the two of us

**Author's Note:**

> this fic contains guns and violence (slightly more so than usual and now with 50% more punching). it also contains a description of burn wounds and a scene with forced mutilation. the two appear at the beginning and end of the fic, respectively.
> 
> the issues of guilt and loneliness (briefly touching on depression/ptsd) will be explored in this fic, including a breakdown being experienced by a character, as well as suicide being implied by another. please heed the warnings and take care while reading.
> 
> if you haven't read chapter seven of 'the last vault hunter', i would strongly recommend you go and do that first before reading this. you can read it over [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4212195/chapters/11380570); trust me, things will make a lot more sense if you've read that first.

The front door of the building bangs open as Zylus bursts out, just in time to see Lalna land his smoking Buzzard onto one of the platforms scattered around T-Bone Junction. A second later, Lalna’s Loader heavily lands with a giant ‘clunk’, going still. It’s bearing one (shivering) Daltos, his hands tied behind his back by something Zylus can’t quite see.

Daltos’ head snaps up to see Zylus staring at him. He stops shivering. The two of them wear identical expressions of momentary surprise, taking in the bruises on each other’s faces. Something closes in Daltos’ expression, rendering him unreadable to Zylus.

The second of tension (so thick and heavy, almost suffocating) turns into two, then three. Whatever hate he’d managed to temper into submission over the years burns with newfound intensity. 

He roughly grabs Daltos by the front of his jacket and hauls him out of the Loader’s hands, dragging him across the platform towards the front door of the building he’d emerged from. Daltos stumbles but manages to right himself, straightening up and refusing to let Zylus drag him any further, his jaw set. 

Zylus almost lets go of him there and then as the fabric of Daltos’ jacket (slippery with dried blood) nearly slips out of his hand. He turns to Daltos, gritting his teeth. A second hand joins the first. 

By putting almost of his entire body weight behind the pulling, he manages to succeed in dragging Daltos in through the front door and into one of the rooms.

Lalna remains oblivious. He’s climbed out of his Buzzard and is standing on the platform. His back is turned to them, the wind wiping away the cold sweat from his face and forehead. He’s too absorbed in accessing his HUD (likely to pinpoint where the other Vault Hunters had crashed) to interfere. 

Zylus would have said something to him but his priority rests in securing Daltos so that Daltos doesn’t escape and wreak havoc. He hadn’t expected the Vault Hunters to succeed in bringing back Daltos and as such, he hadn’t prepared a room or anything in advance.

Having hit upon this snag, his mind goes blank. Lost in momentary thought, he fails to observe the bit of frayed, white cloth slipping free from Daltos’ wrists. It flutters to the floor, forgotten by the two of them in the next moment. 

Daltos raises both of his hands to roughly pry Zylus’ hands off of him. Daltos throws them aside with more force than necessary, startling Zylus from the shock of rough gloves closing around his own bare hands for few seconds.

Zylus takes a few wary steps back upon realizing that Daltos’ hands are no longer bound. 

Both their frames are radiating extreme wariness and barely suppressed hostility, lending a charged uncertainty to the air that fills the room akin to the moment before the tension boils over with all hell breaking loose.

Neither of them move from their opposing positions in the room.

It dawns on Zylus is that Daltos hasn’t drawn a gun on him. If Daltos is willing to be that courteous, then he won’t draw a gun either, no matter how tempting it is fire off a few shots (make that an entire round of ammo, rather) into Daltos’ skull. 

He reminds himself that the Vault Hunters hadn’t simply succeeded just so he could murder Daltos in cold blood. There are far better ways of exacting revenge and Daltos remaining alive is a key factor to them.

It’s only when they’re locked in this stalemate that he can get a proper look at Daltos (fully aware that Daltos is evaluating him in turn, despite his neutral expression). Daltos is taller, if such a thing is possible, slightly thinner and more tired than Zylus last remembers. Pandora has clearly left its mark on him over the years.

Zylus’ gaze can’t quite help but flick up to the scarring above his left eyebrow, casually noting the lack of twin silver bars there. His gaze drifts back down to Daltos’ face. 

Daltos seems unusually calm. That bothers Zylus. 

Nobody should be this calm when faced with the looming threat of their unwilling incarceration, especially at the hands of their own quarry. He would have hazarded a guess as to the possible reasons but he’s not sure if he’s going to like what his mind successfully conjures up.

He drags his mind back to his once-over of Daltos. Daltos looks right at home in his bandit clothing. It pains Zylus a little to find himself noting that the look suits Daltos. 

It’s definitely not because he has any outstanding issues with Daltos’ physical appearance, but rather, the fact it’s undeniable that he’s truly become a bandit. Plus, it’s no great secret around these parts that Zylus despises bandits and is indiscriminate in his killings of them. 

Most of those bandits had belonged to Daltos’ gang. 

If Daltos is aware of that and Zylus’ attitude towards bandits, he remains unfazed. He simply bears Zylus’ silent scrutiny of him without looking away or flinching, his head held high.

That being said, Daltos’ arms are crossed over his chest (not quite pressing against his front) in an attempt to disguise the fact that he’s still breathing hard. There’s an almost pained edge to it. 

Zylus thinks of asking him if he’s in pain. The second that particular thought forms, he pushes it aside, not willing to waste energy and time in being sympathetic.

He remembers that he’d picked up something potentially useful when going through the other buildings for supplies and useful items. 

Careful not to give away any hint as to what he’s planning, Zylus patiently waits for Daltos to lower his guard. Zylus is also fully aware that he can’t take his eyes off Daltos until then. 

It happens sooner than he expects because Daltos visibly relaxes upon seeing that Zylus isn’t going to actually attack him.

He’s about to say something but Zylus doesn’t give him the chance (and he would have regretted it more if things hadn’t become so _bad_ in the past between them).

He lunges at Daltos, slamming him back against the wall. 

The back of Daltos’ head cracks against the wall; he exhales sharply as one of Zylus’ hand curls into his jacket, keeping him upright and pinned. Zylus briefly hopes that the pain will stun Daltos long enough to prevent him from retaliating. 

Before Zylus can digistuct anything, gloved fingers lace through his hair. He can feel the slight weight of an arm against his back before it hits him as to what’s going to happen. 

A single, sharp tug causes his head to be wrenched back before he can brace himself in time. He can’t help but let out a pained sound. Pinpricks of hot, sharp pain lights up every single nerve around the back of his head. 

His grip on Daltos’ jacket falters.

Daltos’ hand mercilessly yanks his head back further. Zylus is forced to completely let go of him, snapping his eyes shut as the pain reaches a new threshold.

Apparently unsatisfied with not having caused enough pain, Daltos swiftly punches him in the gut, winding him. Zylus is forced to his knees with another yank to the back of his head. It doesn’t take much effort for Daltos to hold him at arm’s length, keeping Zylus not quite in front of him but slightly off to the side. 

“You always did have a kink for having your hair pulled,” Daltos observes in a callous tone.

“You fucking _prick_ ,” Zylus breathes through grit teeth, forcing himself to open his eyes to regard Daltos with renewed resentment.

Under other circumstances and had it been anybody but Daltos doing the hair pulling, Zylus might found it enjoyable. At the moment, it just really fucking _hurts_ , paralyzing and rooting him to the spot. 

His hands weakly find Daltos’ wrist in an attempt to separate Daltos’ hand from his hair but Daltos maintains a firm grip.

Daltos just gives an amused chuckle, unsteadily pushing off the wall. He relaxes his grip (only just a fraction) on Zylus’ head as he does so. Momentarily pain-free, Zylus spies an opportunity and takes it (despite the threat of further pain).

Metal clinks and settles into place. Daltos looks down in surprise, seeing that Zylus has managed to handcuff him to the radiator next to them.

“This is a new kink of yours,” Daltos dryly says before adding in a low, dangerous voice, “Give me the key.”

“No way,” Zylus automatically says (unable to hide the pain in his voice). He grins, having succeeded in finding Daltos’ fingers and applies force to them, bending them back as hard as he can. 

Daltos lets go before Zylus succeeds in breaking any of his fingers. 

Zylus falls away, landing awkwardly on the floor. He shakily breathes out in relief as he gets to his feet, quickly retreating well beyond Daltos’ reach before Daltos can get another hold of him. Zylus briefly regrets not having succeeded in breaking any of Daltos’ fingers.

That being said, Daltos flexes the fingers that Zylus had tried to break. He gives Zylus a mild look before testing the handcuffs. The handcuffs remain solidly in place instead of buckling under the experimental tugs. 

Daltos frowns but remains put, just as Zylus had intended. 

Relieved that he didn’t have to resort to extreme measures or improvise any further, Zylus pats himself down.

He can feel a nasty bruise forming ( _ouch_ , right on top of his liver) from when Daltos had punched him in the gut earlier. His head still hurts from having his hair pulled but the pain is beginning to rapidly fade. Zylus is surprised that Daltos had remembered something so insignificant, using it to his advantage to play dirty, the _prick_.

Other than that, there’s no lasting damage he has to worry about. He has Vault Hunters to track down. Right as he’s about to step through the doorway, Daltos speaks, his voice just loud enough for Zylus to hear.

“By the way, nice bruise and thanks for killing the Vault Hunters for me,” Daltos smugly says, right when he reaches the doorway.

Guilt bubbles up so fast that Zylus feels nauseous but it’s replaced by indignant fury in the next second, displacing the nausea entirely. 

He strides back over to Daltos, stopping in front of him. Daltos just smirks at having successfully found one of Zylus’ sore spots. Zylus draws in a slow, measured breath, one of his hands curling up into a fist. 

Daltos gives him a cool look that replaces his smirk. He punches Daltos, making sure that his punch lands on the bruised side of Daltos’ face. Daltos grunts, falling back against the wall from the force of said punch, his free hand already moving to his face.

In the time it takes for him to recover, Zylus takes the chance to steal Daltos’ digistruct modules and broken shield by deftly unclipping them from his jacket. He doesn’t trust Daltos with them while he’s gone; the modules go into his own inventory for safekeeping.

Daltos gingerly takes his hand away from his face. Spots of blood glisten on one of the fingers of his gloves. He says nothing, merely watching as a satisfied Zylus turns and leaves the room. 

He heads outside (closing the front door after him) to digistruct two vehicles so that he and Lalna can search for the other Vault Hunters. Lalna appears to not have noticed his prolonged absence at all or the fact that Zylus has just scuffled with Daltos. Granted, it doesn't look like he's been in a fight.

He wouldn’t want them to think that he has any difficulty in handling Daltos, after all. Zylus climbs into the technical. 

One of the Loaders wakes with a mechanical whir. It moves to stand next to him while Lalna is climbing into the Monster. Zylus can feel the inquisitive look it’s giving him. He dismisses the Loader with a shake of his head, dashing off some precise orders to the entity controlling the Loader.

The Loader moves closer to the building holding Daltos, standing guard in front of the door. Zylus starts up the technical and steers it out of T-Bone Junction towards the first marker on his HUD.

The knuckles of Zylus’ hand still stings, the skin scraped raw by how hard his punch had been. He almost feels guilty for putting the force of several years worth of emotions into that punch. A lick of Daltos’ blood wets his knuckles, dry and beginning to flake off by the time he and Lalna reach the wreckage of Strife’s Buzzard. 

Standing atop a dune, Strife waves one hand to flag them down. His other hand is held at an odd angle by his side. The sight drags Zylus’ spirit down to an all new low. From here, it looks like Strife’s wrist is broken.

While Lalna hops out of the Monster and runs over to Strife, it occurs to Zylus that Daltos had been expecting that punch for a long, long time. Zylus can’t help but berate himself for having played directly into Daltos’ expectations on the way to find Rythian and Nanosounds.

He doesn’t wipe the blood off until he’s back in view of the town, loathe to look at the reminder of how violently their first reunion in years had gone. It’s not a good sign of things to come.

At least they’re separated for the time being, giving both of them time to cool down.

\--

It's evening by the time Zylus returns to T-Bone Junction with the Vault Hunters in tow. After instructing the security system to let them back in, he dismisses the Loader standing guard. It clunks into the garage and powers down.

Zylus checks on his 'guest', pleased (and relieved) to find one very bored Daltos sitting on the floor. His back is against the wall. Daltos looks up when he walks in. 

"Welcome back," Daltos sarcastically says. "Aren't you proud of me? I haven't escaped, just as you feared." Just to emphasize his point, he rattles the handcuffs with a resulting jingle of metal. 

The impulse to go over and kick him in the chest is almost overwhelming but Zylus deliberately puts it out of his mind. He's sworn not to cause Daltos any further pain (unless he really has to, he supposes). He forces himself to walk past Daltos. 

He expects Daltos to try to trip him. Much to his surprise, Daltos doesn't even remotely attempt anything of the sort.

Rythian appears at the doorway, inquiring after Daltos' whereabouts. Zylus just gestures in Daltos’ general direction. From what Zylus can make of Rythian's features, he is surprised to find Daltos handcuffed to the radiator. 

Yes, it's cliche but it's been rather effective so far.

He's glad he's put away everything in an organized manner so that he doesn't have to rummage through every storage unit to find what he's looking for. He pulls out the medical supplies. When he turns around, Rythian and Daltos are staring at each other.

Rythian is staying well away from Daltos. Zylus doesn't blame Rythian for making the wise decision to do so. It's a shame the same can't really apply for him.

After dropping everything off onto the table next to Rythian, Zylus fetches a bottle of water from the kitchen so that Daltos can be kept alive. Rather than giving it directly to Daltos, he enacts his revenge by leaving it just slightly out of Daltos' reach. 

The incredulous look on Daltos' face is worth it before he makes an amused sound. 

"Get fucked," He deadpans.

Zylus' mind stalls. He has to use all of his willpower to remain outwardly calm when on the inside, he's anything but.

"Are you offering?" He easily replies, pleased that his voice doesn't crack or go high-pitched. Daltos hadn't been expecting that, judging by the mild frown on his face. There's a profound pause and Zylus suppresses the urge to laugh.

"I wouldn't fuck you even if you were the last person on this fucking planet," Daltos finally retorts.

Zylus moves to clean Rythian's wound. He refrains from pointing out that it'll just technically be him and Zylus left in T-Bone Junction once the Vault Hunters leave.

He does succeed in trolling Daltos one more time (sweet, sweet vengeance) before tending to the remaining Vault Hunters' wounds. It's a shitty attempt to make up for, as Daltos had pointed out, almost killing them. 

They don't appear to hold it against him though because none of the Vault Hunters reject his help.

Daltos is silent (a little _too_ silent) though Zylus had feared he'd be worse when the rest of the Vault Hunters had shown up. Perhaps he'd underestimated Daltos' capacity to learn from punishment. Either that or Daltos is biding his time. 

"So, are you going to tell us why you wanted Daltos?" Rythian asks.

Zylus had been hoping Rythian wouldn't ask. He knows Rythian is simply curious but really, he has no intention of explaining _everything_. Daltos looks up with an unhappy expression on his face, first at Rythian, then at Zylus.

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of him," Zylus says, unable to stop a small chuckle from escaping.

He feels like he's explained it to Rythian before but he doesn't exactly remember if he's done so in the past or what exactly he's said. There's also the issue of them offering help which Zylus doesn't want or need.

What he does is also distract by making good on his promise to hand over the power core. And of course one of the Vault Hunters would notice. Nanosounds notices that he hasn't answered Rythian's question. 

Zylus can feel Daltos' eyes on him, watching and waiting to see if he cracks under the pressure. He's not getting that satisfaction (not today, at least).

"I didn't?" Zylus lightly says, making sure that he looks thoughtful instead of annoyed. "He and I have a lot of talking to do, that's all." 

It's an understatement, but there's a grain of truth hidden in it. They do have to talk at some point, preferably when Daltos is more cooperative and open to the idea.

Something relaxes in Daltos' posture.

"I should feed you lot, chances are you're probably hungry." Zylus gets up and leaves the room before they can ask any further questions. He doesn't miss the puzzled and curious air left behind.

While in the kitchen, Zylus can hear the Vault Hunters ask Daltos about their history. Much to Zylus' relief, Daltos doesn't reveal anything. He ends up insulting the Vault Hunters' intelligence. Zylus has to appreciate his silence on the matter (somewhat).

The cooking comes as a second nature to him. It's the part where he has to remember to times everything by six is where he has a minor stumble. He succeeds in the end though, evenly dividing up the food onto five plates.

After a moment, he pulls out a sixth plate.

He's not that cruel as to let Daltos starve, knowing fully well how starvation feels. He scourges up clean forks from one of the cupboards. He also manages to find a tray big enough to carry all six plates.

Plates and forks are loaded onto the tray before he balances it in his hands and carries it out of the kitchen.

Lalna doesn't seem inclined to dig in straightaway but once Zylus has answered his question about what it is, Lalna appears to be satisfied and starts to eat. Somehow, the sight of them eating eases his heart a little.

Zylus can detect the Vault Hunters' surprise when he hands a plate of food and fork to Daltos. Surprise flickers across Daltos' face for one second (blink and anyone but Zylus would have missed it) before it's replaced by a scowl. 

Daltos takes the plate though.

While Zylus is eating, he does notice that Daltos is careful to keep any weight (particularly his free hand) off of his chest; his breathing is unsteady and shallow. That's not right. It should have returned to normal by now. Zylus keeps his observations to himself. He'll deal with it after the Vault Hunters have left. 

Rythian's pulled down his scarf to expose his face so he can eat.

Zylus only stares for a few seconds before he's grown used to it. Daltos, on the other hand, stares for a while. His staring of Rythian is more curiosity than horror. If anything, he seems _fascinated_ by Rythian's unusually sharp teeth, craning his head to watch Rythian methodically clear his plate of food.

When he catches Zylus watching him, Daltos stubbornly turns his attention away as if to deny him the satisfaction of watching.

\--

Zylus lowers his hand once the Vault Hunters are out of sight. He hasn't been looking forward to this but there's no way to avoid it. He returns to the room.

Daltos has put down the plate and fork onto the floor next to him. Most of the food is untouched.

At the sound of Zylus' footsteps, he manages a half-hearted, withering look in Zylus' direction before his eyes slide shut. He completely slumps against the wall.

Zylus crouches by him.

He reaches out with his hands, unzipping Daltos' jacket and gently pushing up his shirt. Daltos must have been in much more pain than he'd let on because he doesn't put up any resistance. The most he does is inhale sharply when the air hits his exposed skin. 

He mutters something that Zylus doesn't quite catch since Zylus is too busy staring in horror at the burns impressed on Daltos' chest.

Distorted welts and raised blisters mar almost the entire surface of Daltos' chest. Whatever had caused them has burned through the upper layers of skin, exposing raw, wet tissue underneath. Some of the tissue seems deformed, swollen and is an unnatural pink (and in some places, completely dry and pale looking).

White flakes ring the welts and blisters where the skin's beginning to peel away. Some of the burst blisters are weeping clear fluid that sticks to the skin around them. 

It's not a pretty sight altogether, causing Zylus' stomach to turn (but he's somewhat relieved because he'd been expecting much worse). He can deal with this.

He gently pulls Daltos' shirt back down.

Zylus tries not to let his hands shake as he digistructs the key to the handcuffs. He succeeds in unlocking the handcuffs without dropping the key. The handcuffs fall to the floor; the key is tucked back into his inventory.

Daltos is hefted up against his shoulder, letting himself be moved without a complaint. He stirs and tries to stand on his own but Zylus shifts so that he's bearing the majority of Daltos' body weight. 

Zylus is glad he's made his bedroom on the ground floor, so he doesn't have to move Daltos very far. Daltos isn't that heavy either, surprisingly lighter than he looks.

Once Zylus enters the bedroom and is standing by the bed, he carefully drops Daltos onto it. Daltos jolts awake, sitting up on the edge of the bed. His jacket's slid down to his elbows. He shrugs it off, letting it fall to the floor.

Without his jacket on, Zylus can see more burns along both of Daltos' arms. They're not as bad as the ones on his chest but Zylus can see that Daltos is deliberately downplaying how much it hurts him when his jacket accidentally brushes against the burns.

Daltos takes off his gloves next, tossing them onto his jacket. Zylus manages to tear his gaze away and starts searching the storage unit nearby for anything that might help. 

"Don't bother, I'll live," Daltos says, breaking the semi-awkward silence. There's a note of suppressed pain in his tone.

"You can hide your injuries from the Vault Hunters, but not from me," Zylus murmurs, moving onto the next storage unit since the previous one holds nothing but guns and weapons.

"I don't need any of your concern," Daltos quietly says. 

"Why didn't you say anything before?" Zylus instantly regrets asking that question the second he's voiced it.

Those blisters had likely burst as a result of him slamming Daltos up against the wall. The guilt sits heavy in his gut. He makes no attempt to budge it from its spot.

"You forget I'm the one with the higher pain tolerance and I'm running a bandit gang. Also, this is nothing," Daltos says. Zylus senses that he would have gestured at the burns if he could have.

"So any weakness you show is going to be preyed on?" Zylus can't help but mock him but even then, it comes out sounding weak. 

"No, actually, they're very good about it," Daltos says in a pleasant tone before trading it for a sarcastic one, "Of _fucking course_ they do. How else do you think I've survived on Pandora, no thanks to you stranding us here in the first place?"

And there it is. Zylus says nothing.

He finds what he's looking for, pulling out a brand new tube of medical gel, bandages (the gauze kind) and painkillers. He digistructs a bottle of water (he'd been saving that for later), snapping one of the painkillers free from its fellows and foil wrapping.

He returns to the bed with both in his hands. 

"We need to clean your burns in the bathroom. Can you move-"

"Give me the painkiller," Daltos mutters, interrupting him. Zylus hands him the bottle of water and the painkiller. Daltos manages only a few mouthfuls of water before swallowing the painkiller.

He leaves the bottle of water on the table nearby. 

Zylus leans down to help him up. Daltos raises a hand, plants his palm right on Zylus' sternum and shoves him away. Zylus staggers back from the unexpected shove. Daltos rises from the bed, walking past him out into the hallway.

He pauses to figure out where the bathroom is before spotting it and entering. 

There'd barely been any force behind the shove and Zylus is reeling more from the shock of Daltos managing to do so despite his current condition. He gathers everything into his inventory before following.

The bathroom door has slid shut but it's not locked when Zylus tests the handle. Still, he knocks once and enters without waiting for a response. He catches Daltos in the middle of undoing his belt; he stops and glares at Zylus. 

Zylus tries not to stare at the lack of a shirt, deliberately focusing his gaze on a point just over Daltos’ bare (and scarred) shoulder. 

"I know how to clean my own wounds," Daltos snaps at him.

He's in front of Zylus the next second, his hands roughly spinning Zylus around and shoving him by the shoulders towards the bathroom door. Zylus digs his heels in, unwilling to leave just like that. 

"You can't possibly be thinking of showering in that state," Zylus says, intending to say more but Daltos sighs and interrupts him, impatiently digging his fingers _hard_ into Zylus' shoulders. 

"I don't need your help for either of those things." For some reason, that stings more than it should.

"At least let me give you everything you need!" Zylus hadn't meant to shout but Daltos stops trying to shove him back through the door, letting go and drawing away.

Zylus sees that it's costing him to put up a fight against accepting any help; Daltos' chest is heaving unevenly again and the color has drained from his face once more.

When Zylus peers at him in concern, he proceeds to muster up enough energy to glare back.

Zylus heaves a small sigh. He digistructs the medical supplies, leaving them next to the sink and exits before Daltos can kick him out. The door slides shut the moment Zylus is back out in the hallway.

Really, he should have known better than to try to help. Still, he tells himself that Daltos is perfectly free to tell him if he needs help. The guilt is only telling him he's not doing _enough_ because those burns had been his _fault_.

Fifteen seconds after he's left the bathroom, Zylus hears the sound of clothes hitting the floor and running water. Knowing that Daltos will be a while, Zylus pulls up a chair and picks a random book from one of his 'to-read' stacks. 

He can't concentrate; the words swim about on the page and he catches himself reading the same sentence five times. His thoughts keep returning to the sight of those burns. He gives up on reading when the bathroom door slides open. 

A barefoot Daltos almost collides with him. Daltos is carrying his shirt and boots in one hand and he's dressed in his original clothing. He frowns when he sees Zylus camped out on a chair but he says nothing.

He steps around Zylus, heading straight for the bedroom.

Zylus observes gauze neatly wrapped around Daltos' chest and arms. There's the lingering, clinical smell of medical gel in place of cigarette smoke and blood. The chair and book are returned to their rightful places before Zylus enters the bedroom. 

Daltos is sitting on the edge of the bed, his bare fingers combing through his wet hair. His jacket and shirt are neatly folded up and placed atop of his boots (placed nearby). 

"Here." Zylus finds and tosses him a spare, clean shirt. Daltos catches it and pulls it on. He lies down on his side (careful not to trap his bandaged arm underneath him), head resting on one of Zylus' pillows. 

Zylus starts rummaging through his wardrobe so he can change into his sleepwear (a shirt and sweatpants). Daltos keeps his back turned on Zylus the entire time.

At least Daltos' breathing has evened out, almost normal once again and there's color in his face.

The other side of the bed is taken by Zylus. He's mindful to keep enough distance between them so that they don't accidentally touch, even if the size of the bed doesn't permit them much more than a hand's breadth apart.

With a methodical click, he slides off the monocle from his mechanical eye. That goes into his inventory.

The light is turned off, plunging the room into complete darkness. He closes his eyes so that the glow of his mechanical eye doesn't keep him awake.

"Touch me in my sleep and I'll dislocate your shoulder from its socket," Daltos sleepily warns him. Zylus had thought he'd nodded off but apparently not. It sounds like Daltos is on the verge of passing out though.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Zylus dryly says, knowing that even wounded, Daltos is more than capable of and willing to carry out his threat.

He's completely exhausted and so is Daltos, so for now, there's the air of a tentative truce in place. That is, until they wake. Zylus doesn't know what'll happen then but he'll worry about that when he wakes up.

\--

Daltos doesn't have to open his eyes to know that he's being watched as a slight weight settles across from him. It's a nice change though, to not feel killing intent. Still, he doesn't like the sensation of being watched since trouble usually follows.

Might as well get it over and done with.

He opens his eyes to find Zylus anxiously peering at him. Zylus is sitting across from him on his side of the bed. It tells Daltos he'd moved to the middle of the bed at some point during his sleep.

He also wonders if Zylus had actually kept his hands to himself. There's no way of telling so he forgets about it in favor of glancing at Zylus.

The bruise on Zylus' face looks a little better compared to last night. It's still there nonetheless, an angry-looking purplish mark that reminds Daltos of yesterday's events. That's enough to put him in an grouchy mood.

He hasn't even gotten out of bed yet.

Closing his eyes, he dearly hopes Zylus will kindly fuck off if he waits long enough. After what he feels is five minutes and Zylus isn't going anywhere, he opens his eyes again.

"If you're waiting for a ‘good morning’, you're not getting one," He says. Zylus doesn't even start, much to his mild disappointment. 

"How are you feeling?" Zylus patiently asks.

Daltos would have told him to 'fuck off' or something equally eloquent if it hadn't been such a decent question worth considering.

He doesn't know how long he's been asleep but he does feel considerably better.

Compared to yesterday, he can breathe better without feeling like there's an intricate layer of hundred or so needles that dig down into his lungs whenever he inhales or exhales too deeply. Whatever painkillers he'd taken have worn off, so the feeling is renewed but duller, more bearable.

His head's also clearer so he can actually think without his thoughts being slow to form and take. The side of his face is extremely sore but that's a given with the bruises there. They'll eventually heal. 

The only thing that hasn't changed is his heart. Said organ is sending out an unpleasant spasm every now and then that makes it hard to properly breathe. He would have said it was painful if he hadn't gotten used to it so quickly.

"My heartbeat is all over the place, but I'm fan-fucking-tastic, thanks for asking," Daltos sarcastically replies, deciding to be honest.

"That's not normal," Zylus says, frowning.

Daltos sighs. "No, it's not. Kidnapping people and electrocuting them in the process isn't normal either."

Zylus' eyes go wide. He _stares_. Daltos has no qualms about telling him exactly how he'd gotten burned and had his heart damaged in the process, now that he knows Zylus had been the one calling the shots.

It's almost satisfying to see the soul-crushing guilt play out over Zylus' face.

The only fact that's preventing him from enjoying it is that Zylus isn't directly responsible for his wounds. Daltos is logical enough to know that the Vault Hunters had caused them, so he doesn't exactly blame Zylus for them. 

Zylus hasn't appeared to made that logical leap. Daltos almost pities him. Almost, if he wasn't so fantastically familiar with how Zylus' mind works (and knowing the same applies in reverse). Knowing Zylus, Zylus blames himself anyway.

Had it been anybody else, Daltos would have already figured out a way to manipulate that guilt. Since it's Zylus however, Zylus already probably knows how to avoid falling for any of his manipulations. A shame. 

"Do you need a doctor?" Zylus eventually asks, some of the guilt fading from his expression.

"What I need is for you to go away so I can keep sleeping," Daltos hints. Zylus doesn't budge, continuing to peer at him, almost fretting now. Daltos refrains from sighing. "Do you have an Anshin syringe anywhere in this broken, backwater place of yours?"

He doesn't expect Zylus to have one considering just how obnoxiously expensively they are. The intention had been to get Zylus to leave to go find one and thus, leave him in peace.

"Actually, I have one right here," Zylus unexpectedly says, digistructing said syringe and holding it out in the palm of his hand.

Well, scratch that plan.

Zylus having an Anshin syringe is even better. Daltos moves to sit up on the bed. It takes him more effort than he likes, his body viciously protesting every muscle being marshaled into action. It's nothing he hasn't dealt with before though.

Zylus puts down the syringe before reaching over to help him up.

He dismissively knocks away Zylus' hands. He's not liking the fact that Zylus' attitude towards him has reversed upon Zylus seeing that he's wounded. Zylus watches him, his gaze anxious. Daltos ignores it as best as he can. 

Once he's sitting up, he pushes up the sleeve of his (borrowed) shirt and tugs aside the gauze on his upper arm. He holds his hand out for the syringe. Zylus drops it into his hand. Daltos can't help but give it a once-over.

It doesn't seem to have been tampered with, the safety seal still intact. He uncaps it, finds a clean, undamaged place on his arm and forces himself to relax (as tensing up will only make the whole process more difficult). 

He stabs the syringe into his arm. He can feel the tiniest sting as the needle enters his skin.

Slowly breathing out, he can feel the contents of the syringe start to drain and enter his bloodstream. Once the syringe has completely emptied, he carefully removes it. A drop of bright red blood wells up at the site.

The shirt sleeve and gauze are pulled back into place. Daltos tosses the syringe past Zylus and into the bin. It lands with a muffled clatter.

Daltos gives Zylus an annoyed look as if to say 'happy now'.

Zylus stops peering so anxiously at him and moves off the bed but he lingers in the room. Daltos briefly wonders if Zylus had been waiting for him to wake up just to give (more like offer) the syringe.

He's giving himself a headache with all this back and forth thinking. He just lies back down and rolls over onto his other side to avoid looking at Zylus. 

Zylus starts cleaning up the room.

Daltos sits up again (blatantly ignoring the sudden onslaught of chest pain) to tell him to 'be a little quieter, you're not helping my headache'. Zylus mistakes it as him getting up and out of the bed.

"Don't trouble yourself, just stay in bed," He quickly says as he's sweeping the floor. It occurs to Daltos to ask for some of his stuff back while he can.

"At the very least, can I get my cigarettes, lighter and a book or something?" Zylus pauses to give him a considering look. "I might try to _escape_ if I'm bored," Daltos adds sarcastically.

"Nah, the turrets will get you if you take one step outside of this town," Zylus informs him with too much cheerfulness. 

"I see my sarcasm was lost on you," Daltos says. It'd been worth a shot. 

Zylus reaches into the inside of his jacket, withdrawing his cigarettes and lighter, tossing them both to him. Daltos catches them. He's careful not to let his surprise (or gratitude) show on his face.

"If you have to smoke, do it outside," Zylus says with a look of disapproval.

"Give me some more credit than that," Daltos retorts, placing both items onto the nearby bedside table. 

"I'll be in the garage if you need me." At last, Zylus leaves the room, allowing him to go back to sleep in peace.

\--

\- // PLAYING ECHO // -

Computer: Please enter in authorization codes to disengage A.I. Core...codes accepted. Disengaging A.I. Core.  
Daltos: Zylus! There you are.  
Zylus: Don't come any fucking closer. In fact, get away as far as possible from me!  
Daltos: Zylus, we can talk about this-  
Zylus: No! I can't believe you shot me, I can't see out of my right eye!  
Daltos: That was-  
Zylus: Next shot isn't going to miss. Get out of my way.

\- // LOG CORRUPT...

ATTEMPTING TO REPAIR CORRUPTED FILE...

REPAIR FAILED...NOW SKIPPING AHEAD TO INTACT SEGMENT IN ECHO LOG // -

Bridge Crew Member: Should we go after him?  
Daltos: Nah, let him run. It'll make the hunt more fun.  
Bridge Crew Member: Are you sure?  
Daltos: That's if his eye doesn't end up killing him first. If he does kick the bucket, all we have to do is search the body.  
Bridge Crew Member: ...Understood, Captain.  
Daltos: Oh, by the way, it's not 'Captain' or 'sir' anymore. It's just Daltos. Be nice if you could pass that on for me. That is, if you can still walk. 

\- // LOG CORRUPT...

ATTEMPTING TO REPAIR CORRUPT FILE...

REPAIR FAILED, END OF FILE REACHED...

LOOPING ECHO LOG. // -

Computer: Please enter in authorization codes to disengage A.I. Core...codes accepted. Disengaging A.I. Core.  
Daltos: Zylus! There you are.  
Zylus: Don't come any fucking closer. In fact, get away as far as possible from me!  
Daltos: Zylus, we can talk about this-

\- // USER HAS ENDED ECHO RECORDING PLAYBACK // -

\--

As Zylus takes apart the Buzzard left behind from Lalna's landing, he reflects on Daltos' latest behavior. Daltos only ever wakes up to shower, changes his clothes and bandages before going straight back to sleep.

Surprisingly, Zylus finds that he doesn't mind Daltos borrowing his clothes. After all, he's got more than enough sleepwear for the both of them (one of the few times his hoarding is coming in useful). 

The cigarettes and lighter remain untouched despite having been requested. Zylus knows Daltos hasn't been smoking since there's no trace of the acrid smell anywhere near the vicinity of the building or in any of the rooms. 

Whatever appetite Daltos had on the evening of his arrival has diminished as well. Zylus leaves plates of food, painkillers and bottles of water on the bedside table throughout the day. Usually, only half of the food is eaten. 

Even rarer is when the plate is completely untouched. He can count on the fingers of one hand the total times that's happened so far. In comparison, the bottles of water are usually empty at the end of the day. 

The painkillers he leaves out also go missing. 

He knows that it's not his cooking that's the problem; the Vault Hunters had pretty much scarfed down whatever he'd fed them. Rythian's been silent on any issues that might have happened as a result. In fact, he'd even sent along a message that the others would like to visit again.

It has to be something else.

Zylus stores everything salvageable from the Buzzard in his inventory. The only things left is the frame and whatever he couldn't remove. Finding nothing else of interest on it, Zylus shoves the entire thing towards the edge of the platform.

It creaks and starts to move until it's teetering, about to topple over the edge.

One final, gentle push and it falls down towards the ocean of sand below T-Bone Junction. 

Zylus silently watches as it's soon swallowed up. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, breathing hard from the effort of pushing the remains. His tools are packed up. He drops off the parts in the garage. 

It's definitely not a lack of energy that Daltos is suffering from.

Sometimes he finds Daltos in the middle of reading, having stolen one of Zylus' books from one of the many piles scattered here and there. Daltos scowls and puts away the book whenever he's caught in the act (but he always marks the page he's on before doing so).

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me," Zylus says with a grin on one such occasion.

Daltos just flips him the middle finger in response. Zylus' words does have an effect though. From that point on, Daltos just continues reading, even in Zylus' presence. Otherwise, Daltos chooses to return to sleep like the simple act of reading exhausts him all too easily. 

So he's definitely not bored.

There's also the fact that he hasn't shown any inclinations to escape though that might have been his injuries stopping him from doing so.

Just in case, Zylus never leaves more than three painkillers at a time. He also moves the rest of the painkillers and medications to a more secure location and always checks that the storage units are locked after he's done with them. 

He still has Daltos' digistruct modules on him. He doesn't want to hand back the ECHO device for fear of Daltos using it to call for help. Zylus has gone this long without bandits assaulting T-Bone Junction.

Truth be told, he hadn't expected Daltos to be this tolerant of his presence after their first meeting. He'd completely expected more of a fight.

If Zylus had to be completely honest, he would have preferred an angry, hateful and raging Daltos to whatever _this_ is.

It's not exactly the right time to have a talk with Daltos. 

It's a foolish idea considering what he's about to do but he doesn't have anyone else to talk to who knows exactly what's going on.

Zylus pauses in front of door to the security room that’s located on the other side of T-Bone Junction. He punches in the code to the door and enters, softly closing the door behind him. His footsteps are loud in the cool room.

The camera in the corner of the room (near the ceiling) mechanically turns to survey him. Zylus gives a friendly wave in its direction.

The door ahead of him opens of its own accord with a welcoming air. He steps over the exposed cables on the floor (he really has to tape those over sometime) and enters. The temperature in this room drops, enough for him to start shivering if he hadn't been wearing his jacket.

Monitors and consoles line the walls of the large, darkened room.

An assortment of multicolored wires trail from each console to to the pillar taking up the center of the room. The wires climb the pillar like strange-looking, discolored vines, vanishing into the floor and ceiling around the pillar.

More monitors hang off every bare surface of the pillar. Consoles cluster at the base of the pillar in a circular formation. Every lit up monitor casts an eerie white glow in the dark. The constant hum of machinery lends a comforting background noise to the room that he barely notices. 

Each monitor displays a series of images that lazily flick through each of the cameras wired up around T-Bone Junction. Zylus has long since grown used to the feeling of being watched, knowing that whoever is watching him presents no harm.

It might not be the case for visitors but the Vault Hunters hadn't seemed to have noticed. Zylus turns on the light and the room becomes less unnerving.

A computerized, robotic face flickers into view on the pillar's monitors. The face appears on several monitors at once. Interestingly, BebopVox chooses to change their image slightly every single time Zylus visits.

Their current image doesn't have any visible eyes (said eyes being covered by a red lensed visor). Nonetheless, Zylus can feel them looking in his direction, courtesy of the cameras placed high up around the room.

They nod at Zylus. He picks one of the images to nod at in return. It's really not BebopVox that he's seeing on the monitors, more like a projection. The 'real' BebopVox is elsewhere (below, secure and safe in their A.I. Core). 

He dusts off the only office chair before wheeling it over to the nearest console. As soon as he takes a seat, words fill up the monitor above him. 

> What appears to be the problem? You do not usually come here unless something is bothering you.

"I just felt like it," Zylus says, not quite willing to jump straight into what's bothering him. BebopVox doesn't appear to have any qualms about such bluntness.

> Is Daltos proving uncooperative?

"No," Zylus carefully says, adding, "Why would you think that?"

> I've noticed that he hasn't been talking to you much since he got here.

"Just because people don't talk much to each other, doesn't mean that they're uncooperative." Zylus pauses to search for a way to explain that won't confuse BebopVox. "Uncooperative would mean escape attempts or something equally violent. Does that make sense?"

> I see. That makes sense.  
> Why can't you just make him talk to you?

"That would be likely to make him do the exact opposite," Zylus points out.

> Noted. 

"Are you out of ECHOnet shows?" Zylus opts to change the subject upon having been reminded of why talking to BebopVox about his problems isn't the best idea.

> No, I still have five GB's worth. 

"How are they? Finding them entertaining?" He's pleased that BebopVox is succeeding in small talk (always a minor victory, considering BebopVox's original purpose). 

> They're interesting. I'm learning a lot. 

"Be careful since what you watch on those shows may not necessarily reflect reality," Zylus warns. He's not too alarmed but he does note to keep an eye on what new shows he provides BebopVox.

> Oh, I know, just from watching you and him interact.

Okay, Zylus has forgotten that BebopVox has eyes and ears everywhere. He hastens to correct any conclusions BebopVox might have reached.

"We're not a very good reference for how normal people behave around each other, Bebop." He pauses, frowning. "Wait, you've been watching us?"

> I have to. You did say he's a bandit, so I have to make sure he's not going to hurt or kill you after the first incident. 

"That was sort of my fault," Zylus uneasily admits. He detects the slightest note of over-protectiveness in BebopVox's previous message. He can't help but chuckle. "He's not going to kill me and I'm not going to kill him either."

> Will that hold true in the future?

Good question. Zylus leans back in the chair to think about it for a few moments.

"It has to," He says firmly, because the consequences of either them ending up dead are bound to have far-reaching consequences outside of T-Bone Junction. Not to mention that if Daltos does kill him, BebopVox is likely to kill him in return.

If Daltos does end up dead first, Zylus isn't sure what he'll do. He could cope but the thought of Daltos dying at his own hands makes him uneasy (even if he previously entertained such thoughts).

> Are you going to tell him about me?

"No. It's better if he doesn't know." Zylus understands why BebopVox is worried. The two of them don't exactly want his efforts to keep BebopVox a secret going to waste if Daltos (or anybody) finds out.

It's half the reason why he'd pursued Zylus so persistently in the past.

Zylus doesn't know why he'd given up in the past few months but rumors had suggested that Daltos has succeeded in gaining a foothold on the northwestern coast of Pandora. He'd been setting his sights on the bandit clans there. That is, until Zylus had taken him out of the picture.

He wonders if Daltos' bandits are going to carry on without him. Knowing Daltos, he's left instructions behind for how to deal with such.

> I think so too.  
> I have noticed you are still unhappy, even after talking to me.

The second message pops up after about five seconds of comfortable silence.

"No, I'm not," Zylus quickly says, wondering if that's something new BebopVox has picked up from all the ECHOnet shows they've watched.

> Yes, you are.

Zylus reaches for the console to type out his response, despite knowing that BebopVox can hear him speak and respond accordingly via text on the monitor. The second he finishes typing, BebopVox is already responding to him. 

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> no im not  
> whoops  
> *No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

> No, I'm not.

> Yes, you are.

"This is getting ridiculous," Zylus finally says, on the verge of laughter. His fingers hurt from having typed so fast but BebopVox had been kind enough to wait for every response before responding.

> Yes, it is. I can also keep it up all day and night.  
> You will have to leave and therefore, I will win by default.

There's something smug in BebopVox's tone, even if they're just using text to communicate. 

"That's not how it works," Zylus replies, somewhat indignantly.

> You have not responded to my query.

"All right, maybe I'm a little unhappy," Zylus admits. It feels strange to admit that to an A.I., even if BebopVox has been his constant companion for years when nobody else had been around.

Zylus rubs his left eye and rests his forehead against one hand.

Granted, BebopVox is an awkward companion at times since being moral and emotional support aren't exactly intricately coded as part of BebopVox's programming.

If Zylus wanted to be mean and a complete dick, he would have completely shunned BebopVox's attempts for being too inhuman (or for being inhuman in the first place). Since Zylus isn't mean or a dick, he appreciates their concern and attempts at such, however stilted and flat it comes across as.

The thing is, BebopVox is always learning; Zylus isn't going to discourage that where Dahl had. He has noted a marked improvement over the years whenever he's talked to BebopVox. Needless to say, he's a little proud.

> Is it because your friend is unwell?

"I guess?" Zylus doesn't mean to sound unsure but there's something so obviously wrong with Daltos and he doesn't know how to help him (with fix not being the right word for it; Daltos isn't a machine).

Zylus is torn.

He can continue to despair, doomed to watch from the sidelines as Daltos continues to suffer silently; Zylus finds no enjoyment in that, especially if Daltos might end up dying.

Or he can opt to act on a cry for help that doesn't necessarily exist. His attempts to help might make things worse, however. But there's hope with the latter option and he'll take that chance.

Even if Daltos is someone whom he still hates, deep, deep down. Does that make him a better person despite the fact that he's the one who's keeping Daltos confined in the first place? These questions swirl around Zylus' mind.

He's slowly been whittling away at the guilt to the point where he can manage to ignore it on most days.

> Humans do not usually sleep this much. If I had access to a biometric scanner, I could tell you exactly what the problem is. 

BebopVox appears to have reached the same conclusion but likely for different reasons.

"Well, too bad we don't have one," Zylus says before swallowing and conceding, "I may have to find a doctor and get them to come here, even if Daltos doesn't want to see one."

> I could look one up for you. 

"Make sure they're credible." Zylus touches the protective monocle covering his right eye. He takes his hand away after a moment. "And narrow the search down to this side of the coast."

He consoles himself in that he's finally decided on a course of action, even if that might result in unintended consequences.

> I will run a background check.

He tosses a chagrined look in BebopVox's direction. BebopVox doesn't react. "I didn't need to know that."

> I thought you would have liked to know, seeing as you specified as much.

"No, I didn't," Zylus insists, trying not to sound overly exasperated.

> The nearest, credible doctor is Lalnable Hector. He is located at Three Horns Valley. 

"Is he related to Lalna? Actually, never mind," Zylus says, getting up from his chair. "Just send the details to my ECHO." He stretches, chasing away the tension in his back and arms.

> Done. 

"Thanks, Bebop. I'll call him and see if he does house calls since I don't see Daltos using the Fast Travel Network anytime soon." That and Daltos might use Fast Travel as a means of escape.

> You seem better now, more at ease. 

"I didn't think talking to you would help since it usually doesn't, but I'm glad it did this time!" Zylus says, grinning. 

> Ouch. 

Zylus looks up, slightly horrified, at BebopVox's face on the monitor above him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way," He quickly says. 

> That was a joke. I do not feel pain, physical or emotional. 

He sighs. That's actually new, if BebopVox is developing a sense of humor. "Good to see that you're making an effort at humor despite your programming constraints in that department."

> I am glad you appreciate my efforts at humor. It is a work in progress. See you around, Zylus. 

"Haha, very funny," Zylus says before leaving the room.

He remembers to step over the cables to avoid tripping on them. Once outside, he pulls out his ECHO to look at the information that BebopVox has sent him about Lalnable Hector.

\--

After a bit of back and forth messaging and a few ECHO calls to figure out details, Zylus and Lalnable agree on a suitable date and time for Lalnable to visit.

Remembering the last time he'd been unable to ask BebopVox to lower the defenses in time, he asks BebopVox well in advance to whitelist Lalnable Hector.

Lalnable's arrival is accompanied by a message from BebopVox announcing his arrival.

Zylus heads to the building containing the Fast Travel Station. Lalnable emerges from the building, a hand protectively held over his eyes. He looks around with an expression of mild curiosity, the wind whipping his short blond hair and stark white lab coat this way and that.

Zylus ends up staring at him for a few moments. The resemblance between Lalnable and Lalna is uncanny. He guesses they're related, moving to greet Lalnable and introduce himself. 

Lalnable takes his hand and gives a slightly awkward handshake like he's not used to them. Zylus lets it slide (because it somehow reminds him of Rythian).

"I don't usually come out this far," Lalnable idly comments once he's let go of Zylus' hand. 

Zylus chuckles. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Is it just you out here?" Lalnable asks, giving him a curious look.

"Afraid so," Zylus calmly confirms, hoping that Lalnable won't ask too many questions. Lalnable doesn't.

"I see. Where's the patient?" Lalnable draws himself up taller, sounding businesslike all of the sudden. "It'd better not be _you_ because you look well enough and should know better than to waste my time," He says, fixing Zylus with an intense look of scrutiny. 

That earns him an actual laugh from Zylus. Lalnable acts nothing like Lalna. Lalnable just looks faintly annoyed (and Zylus has the faint impression that he doesn't get out much).

"The patient is this way, if you'd be so kind as to follow me," Zylus says once he's stopped laughing, gesturing to the building containing Daltos. Lalnable follows him inside. 

Zylus had picked a time for when he'd known Daltos would fortunately, be awake. Guessing true, Daltos is awake when they enter the bedroom. He puts down the book in his hands to one side, showing no outward reaction to Lalnable's appearance.

Daltos' fingers does twitch though, as if he would have liked a gun.

"This is Lalnable, he's a doctor," Zylus says. "This is Daltos."

Lalnable wastes no time, starts questioning Daltos. Zylus silently hovers at the edge of the room to oversee how this goes down. Surprisingly, Daltos answers each and every single question Lalnable poses to the best of his ability. 

Eventually, Lalnable requests to see the burns while pulling on latex gloves. Daltos starts taking off the gauze, assisted by Lalnable. Daltos doesn't refuse Lalnable's help but Zylus chooses not to take it personally.

Since Zylus has never been around to see Daltos change the bandages, it's the first time he's seen the burns since that one night.

The burns have mostly healed up over, with a few of the more deeper ones looking like they're in the middle of doing so.

"Healing up nicely, seeing as you've been keeping them covered," Lalnable calmly concludes. "You've been treating them with antibiotic-laced medical gel, I assume?" Daltos tosses him said container of gel. Lalnable examines it before handing it back. "Just keep doing what you're doing."

Lalnable listens to Daltos' heart next, digistructing a stethoscope to do so. His pleased expression shifts to a confused one before it's replaced by a mild frown. Zylus' heart sinks.

"What's wrong?" Daltos bluntly asks Lalnable.

"Your heartbeat is very irregular," Lalnable says, putting away the stethoscope and straightening up. He heaves a small, concerned sigh. "I won't ask about the circumstances, but it's likely that your heart has sustained some sort of neurological damage for it to beat like that."

"I see." Daltos gives a slight nod like he had known all along and had simply waited for confirmation. Zylus shoots him a slightly alarmed look that he ignores. 

"Have you used an Anshin syringe?" Lalnable abruptly asks. 

"Yes."

"Have another one." Lalnable digistructs an Anshin syringe.

Daltos rolls up his sleeve, only wincing slightly as the needle slides under his skin. Zylus looks away from the sight, waiting patiently until Lalnable's pulled away, the empty syringe in his hand. 

"Thanks," Daltos evenly says, watching the blood bead up at the injection site. Lalnable discards the empty syringe before pulling out a small bandage and taping over the bloody spot.

"It'll try to mitigate any outstanding damage but there's still the risk of your arrhythmia getting worse." Lalnable pauses. "If that happens, you need to contact me as soon as possible. I'll leave that to him." He calmly nods in Zylus' direction. "I'll send some antiarrhythmics along that you can take in the meantime."

Lalnable starts helping Daltos replace the old gauze with fresh ones. Once they're back in place, Daltos lies back down, closing his eyes. 

"Anything else?" Lalnable patiently asks. Zylus feels that the question is directed at both of them.

"He's been sleeping a lot," Zylus blurts out, causing Lalnable to look at him, raising an amused eyebrow. Daltos opens his eyes and glares in Zylus' direction as if to tell him to 'shut up'. Zylus pointedly ignores him. 

"It's likely that he hasn't been sleeping well before this," Lalnable notes. "So he's just doing some catching up." When he sees Zylus still looks worried, he adds with an amused smile, "It's nothing to worry about unless he doesn't wake up one day or proves unresponsive."

"I see." Zylus fails to hide the look of relief on his face.

"I'd also try to get him to stop smoking but he's likely to not listen," Lalnable says with a look of mild disapproval (it's directed at the cigarettes and lighter on the nearby table). 

"I'm right here, you know," Daltos mutters.

Lalnable gives Zylus a wry smile. "With that, try not to do anything too..." He pauses to search for the right words, "Physically strenuous that might strain his heart. Also, stay away from shocks, of the emotional or physical kind."

"Thanks, doc," Zylus says before blinking, wondering what sort of conclusion Lalnable must have reached for him to say that. Daltos just runs a hand over his face and gives an exasperated sigh. 

Lalnable gives Zylus a slightly chagrined looked at being called 'doc' but doesn't comment any further. Zylus pays him and escorts him to the Fast Travel Station. Once he's seen Lalnable off, he returns to the bedroom to a fuming Daltos. 

"You didn't have to call a doctor," Daltos says with forced calmness. "As you heard, I'm doing just fine healing up without his help."

Zylus bristles at this, glaring at him.

That's a load of bullshit, even if Daltos has been taking less painkillers and is starting to move around more.

If Daltos thinks that his irregularly beating heart is nothing to worry about, then he's sorely mistaken, as Lalnable's reaction had proved. Zylus maintains that he'd been right to get outside help, even if Daltos is being ungrateful.

"I was..." Zylus manages to stop himself from saying 'worried', causing Daltos to stop fuming and stare.

Zylus turns around and walks back out of the bedroom, cursing at himself for such a phenomenal, near-slip of the tongue. He hears footsteps coming after him.

Daltos grabs his arm, his grip surprisingly firm. It stops Zylus in his tracks even though he has more than enough strength to pull out of it. 

"Zylus," Daltos impatiently says. 

"What?" Zylus says, trying not to snap at him. Daltos uses both of his hands to turn Zylus. Zylus lets him and Daltos lets go the instant Zylus is facing him.

"Were you really that worried?" Daltos quietly asks with a serious look on his face. 

That's a hell of a loaded question if Zylus has ever heard one.

"No, I wasn't," He ends up saying. Daltos immediately looks skeptical. "I'm worried that if you die, the Vault Hunters' efforts to bring you here in the first place will have been for nothing," He delivers this ever so calmly, like he's discussing what brand of gun he's using or the weather.

That definitely wipes the skepticism from Daltos' face.

Daltos looks like he wants to punch him (one of his hands curling and uncurling by his side). With a challenging look, Zylus continues looking straight at Daltos. Instead of punching him, Daltos turns on his heel and walks back into the bedroom.

The bedroom door slams shut. The force of it rattles the windows in their frames. Zylus winces from the sound as it echoes down the hallway, his heart racing.

The moody silence that descends is smothering, tinged with regret on his part.

He scrubs his face with a hand, feeling a lot like an asshole because Daltos had just attempted to be civil to him (on the verge of an apology, even). He'd just thrown that back in his face. Zylus doesn't foresee any future attempts from Daltos at being civil. 

Zylus tells himself that hostility is better, but the small voice at the back of his mind taps its foot and shakes its head as if to say 'you've made your bed, now lie in it'.

\--

On bad days, the guilt isn't just a weight in his gut.

It's a well that sits inside of him. He can keep pouring in his beliefs, his convictions, his rationalizations, _anything_ just to fill up the well but it'll never be satisfied. It'll just keep eating away at him from the inside, leaving a raw, helpless and aching void.

He should have listened.

He'd been wrong to keep away (knowing everybody had been dying and he'd done nothing).

He should have been faster.

It's funny how guilt has a way of making one believe things they normally wouldn't. It's also funny how it drives one to do things one normally wouldn't either. 

Loneliness is a wondrous enabler, fellow conspirator and its partner-in-crime.

\--

Zylus and Daltos ignore each other, as is what usually happens when the two of them have a 'disagreement'. He'd expected it, but it still cuts Zylus deeply, even more so when Daltos doesn't even acknowledge him when he previously and usually did.

The silence is occasionally waived when it's only absolutely necessary for them to interact and even then, it's Zylus initiating the interaction. Silence, his old friend, returns to accompany him.

Given its changing nature, Zylus doesn't quite welcome it with open arms.

Sometimes it's so unbearable that Zylus doesn't even like being in the same room as Daltos since it feels like standing out in the open and waiting for lightning to strike when it's thundering all around him.

Daltos sometimes leaves the room first like it's Zylus having said effect on him.

Other times, it's mellow, an easy sort of silence. It seems like one of them is on the verge of talking but it's as if they remember what had caused the silence in the first place and end up refraining.

A whole week of silence passes. 

At this point in time, Daltos has stopped taking painkillers and stopped sleeping so much. Zylus doesn't know if Daltos is still taking the medicine that Lalnable had sent over but he guesses he must be. 

Every now and then, Zylus sometimes catches him exploring T-Bone Junction. He's careful to stay out of Daltos' way and Daltos does the same.

Much to Zylus and BebopVox's relief, Daltos never goes into any of the buildings. He also steers clear of the ones with doorways marked with yellow tape.

Daltos recovering also means he's eating again. Zylus knows because he's been leaving plates in the kitchen (plus fridge) throughout the day. He comes back to said plates having been washed and neatly left to dry by the kitchen sink.

If Zylus wasn't so busy, he would have actually checked to see if Daltos is cooking (since there's sometimes additional plates in the fridge that he doesn't remember leaving). 

Too bad the majority of Zylus' time is spent cleaning the buildings still marked with yellow tape. For two of those buildings, all he had to do was check to see if everything is still clean.

That being said, Zylus is now confronted with the task of fully decontaminating the last building. He's been putting it off for the longest time. Fortunately, he'd gotten rid of all the bodies the last time he'd been in there.

Considering it'd been the building with the most bodies in it, Zylus feels uneasy whenever he so much as glances in its direction. He can't put it off any longer though since it's not going to go away by itself (though that would be nice).

The risk of Daltos going in there and somehow getting infected is also on his mind. 

Since the Loaders can't fit through the front door and hallways, it's pretty much down to Zylus doing all the hard work.

Zylus exchanges his usual wear for items he doesn't mind throwing out (an old shirt, cargo pants and boots that are almost falling apart). He stands in front of the building, gathering all his wits about him. 

The gas mask is pulled into place, as well as the gloves. Just to be safe though, he's got an Oz kit equipped with a medical-grade filter. It bubbles into place around his head, providing him with another level of protection.

A single pull and the yellow tape falls to the ground. Zylus enters the building with a mild sense of trepidation that causes his heart to quicken in his chest.

Stagnant, humid air immediately hits him. He's glad he's got the gas mask and the Oz kit on so he doesn't have to breathe the air, let alone smell what's in it. He closes the door behind him, also mildly feeling nauseous.

The first three rooms are easy. They're minimally furnished, only a few stains here and there. All Zylus has to do is digistruct a decontamination bomb in each one, set them to 'decontaminate', close the doors and leave them to do their work. 

He's not so lucky when it comes to the fourth room. His heart sinks and he wants nothing more than to turn and leave.

It'd been a makeshift hospital room, dead machines, equipment and empty beds scattered here and there. Dried blood and bodily fluids stain the floor and beds in places, leaving behind sickly, gleaming films all along the tiles and sheets.

A few of the beds have bullet holes embedded into the wall above them; dried blood also clings to the outlines of them. 

Yeah, he's going to have to burn the sheets and drop more than a few decontamination bombs before he's sure that this place is remotely clean. He's not a germaphobe; the real reason why he had avoided the task of decontaminating this building is because of the memories.

He'd personally known each and every single one of those people.

They're all gone now, hopefully to a better place (as he'd told the Vault Hunters). Guilt ripples through him, stirring up the dredges of unwanted thoughts, memories and feelings in their wake. 

They are slow to settle, each sending pangs of fresh blame through him until they do so. 

His hands are shaking as he strips the first bed down.

The first bed has old vomit stains on one side and the imprint of a person having remained bed-ridden for at least a week or so. 'You can do this' becomes a steady mantra that he slowly repeats to himself. It only partially blocks the ripples.

The sheets go into a wide and deep enough container that he digistructs beforehand.

By the third bed (considerably more stained and lived in than the last two), he's light-headed despite the Oz kit and gas mask functioning just fine. He's not so sure if he can do it, his resolution beginning to waver and crumble.

The ripples build into waves that wear at him nonstop. Still, he carries on as best as he can.

By the seventh bed (soaked through to the mattress and the wall above it riddled with bullets), he's feels like he's on the brink of breaking down, every nerve on edge and head pounding to the point of a migraine.

The loneliness, now merged with panic, guilt and grief is boring its way through him, raw and unbearable. 

The well overflows, flooding him with waves of grief so powerful that it hurts his entire being. 

He can't do this.

He doesn't remember leaving the building until he finds himself shoving through the front door. Zylus emerges into the warm, fresh and dry air of T-Bone Junction. He despawns the gloves before yanking off the Oz kit and gas mask.

Sweat drips down his forehead, trickling down his face and neck. He tilts his head back, basking in the sun. He takes a shaky breath with some difficulty, his lungs refusing to cooperate for several moments. 

Being outside dulls the aches just enough for him to feel like he can deal.

It's been a long time since he felt like this, his last breakdown having been two (he's not so sure) weeks prior to meeting the Vault Hunters.

Tears prick his remaining eye. He drops whatever he's holding to rub at his eye. Someone walks over, stopping just off to the side, watching him steadily. Zylus inhales slowly so that he doesn't hiccup and lifts his head to see who it is.

Daltos is standing there, looking a little alarmed.

"I saw you walk in," He says (almost sounding sheepish). It's the first thing he's said to Zylus in days that hasn't consisted of, well, basic responses in a curt tone. "Wasn't sure if you'd come back out, considering you looked like you were about to go into hell."

It feels like he almost says that Zylus looks like hell right now but for some reason, he doesn't. Zylus doesn't like the immediate implication in Daltos' words, too wound up to remember to try to remain calm.

"I wasn't going in there to kill myself," Zylus snaps, his voice breaking in the middle of his sentence. Daltos frowns at him. 

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Oh," is all Zylus can manage and it sounds awkward because he's trying his best to regather his composure. He's having a hell of a time since the pieces are almost out his reach.

It's a little worse because Daltos is steadily watching him with something akin to 'concern' on his features. His presence should have been the complete opposite of reassuring. 

A hesitant calm washes through him, the comforting kind that comes after an emotional catharsis.

The loneliness and guilt still remain. Some burdens are too heavy to move. He can ignore them though, since the loneliness isn't as overwhelming and the guilt has mostly dried up (for now).

Daltos leans over to pick up the Oz kit and gas mask. He straightens up, holding both in his hands.

"If you're running decontamination, I can do it," He says, surprising Zylus, "Just let me borrow some spare clothes while you go and lie down before you pass out or something." 

"I have to do this," Zylus says. He's ashamed to say he sounds slightly panicked at the thought of going back in there. His words cause Daltos to give him a sharp look. 

"You're in no condition to do it," Daltos says. His tone is firm and he seems ready to argue, judging by the sudden, challenging look in his eyes. Zylus realizes that he's right.

"Fine," Zylus concedes. He's in no mood to argue and perhaps Daltos realizes this because he doesn't rub it in.

Zylus starts walking towards the building to get the spare clothes. Daltos falls into step beside him.

"Don't mind me. I'm just making sure you don't actually sneak back into the contaminated building," Daltos coolly says when Zylus briefly glances at him.

"How do you know how to run decontamination?" Zylus casually asks him, unwilling to let any silence reign for the moment.

It's odd but talking is having a reassuring effect on him. The only thing left to resettle are his nerves.

"You think T-Bone Junction was the only place hit? My bandits were hit pretty badly as well," Daltos says. He says it like it's no big deal, using a light, casual tone (almost for Zylus' benefit). "Lost about three entire units before we could figure out what was causing it."

"What caused it?" It's the first Zylus has ever heard of any other place being hit and lived to tell the tale.

"Something in skags and rakks. I'm no specialist so I can't tell you exactly what." Daltos shrugs. "What I do know is that I was one of the few people immune to it. Hooray for mandatory Dahl vaccinations." The last sentence is sarcastic but sarcastic in a way that's not his usual brand. 

It's the most Zylus has ever had Daltos talk in days. He finds that he's more than okay with it. "That would explain why you know how to run decontamination."

"Couldn't risk another outbreak by having non-immune mooks clean up the mess left behind," Daltos says with a sardonic smile. 

The silence that they allow is the easiest to bear so far.

\--

Once they've walked back to the building that Zylus is living in, Zylus finds and hands Daltos the spare clothes. Daltos ducks into the bathroom to change into them.

When he comes out, Zylus holds out a spare digistruct module with everything he needs for decontamination stored inside it. Daltos takes it.

"Thanks." He moves aside to let Zylus enter the bathroom to shower.

Daltos walks to the other building, eventually entering and picking up where Zylus left off. He doesn't initially understand why Zylus had reacted so badly to a simple decontamination procedure.

As he cleans, it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. He would have kicked up a bigger fuss up about Zylus willingly putting himself through 'emotional torture', but.

It's the first time he's ever seen Zylus come this close to breaking down. Even taking into consideration everything Zylus has said and done, it'd felt completely wrong to think about taking advantage of the moment where Zylus had been completely and truly vulnerable. 

He still feels a little bad for even thinking of doing so (even if it would have solved nearly all of his problems in one fell swoop).

Coming across Zylus had been pure coincidence; he'd just seen Zylus closing the door to the building and the worst possibilities had flickered through his mind.

He'd thought about following but he's glad that he decided to wait outside. Even if Zylus had said he wasn't going to off himself, Zylus had still seemed rattled to his core when he'd come outside.

That doesn't sit right with Daltos.

Daltos might still be wounded (the last of the burns finally closing up), but he refuses to be one of those idle and docile prisoners.

He hadn't liked being incapacitated, glad that Zylus had books that he could read. Even if it hadn't been much, it'd still made him feel a lot better about the entire 'trapped in T-Bone Junction with Zylus' thing. It'd distracted him from wanting to murder Zylus early on.

Now he just wants to talk (more like yell) some sense into Zylus. Since he can't quite do that, Daltos just silently fumes at Zylus' stupidity for failing to consider the possibility of asking for help.

He's perfectly willing to help Zylus do whatever he needs to do if it means Zylus won't completely fuck himself over like this again.

The hypocrisy (asking for help, that is) in that is something Daltos is not proud of. In regards to having a doctor come around courtesy of Zylus, Daltos is still bitter. It's only because Zylus' words and behavior don't match up. 

Zylus has never been a particularly good liar but the reasons for why he'd lie and act the opposite are obvious: he still hates him.

Good.

Daltos wouldn't have it any other way.

The building to decontaminate has only two floors. It takes Daltos about two hours to finish the first one and another one and a half hours to finish the second floor. The second floor is considerably cleaner than the first but still requires decontamination.

In the midst of doing so, Daltos finds an intact ECHO device in one of the rooms. After cleaning and resetting it, he hides it. While Zylus is unlikely to walk back into the building, it's best to play it safe.

Other than that, he's almost finished. Almost every muscle in his body is horrendously sore but Daltos ignores the signals that he's close to overexerting himself. He's almost finished, with only one task left to do.

The container full of stained sheets is left on the building's doorstep. His dirty gloves are tossed in with them. Daltos flags down a functional Loader walking around nearby.

It's so slow to turn and regard him with its lone blue eye that Daltos thinks it must be malfunctioning.

He rattles off a simple order, loud and clear (used to wording orders in the same manner to his bandits): take the sheets to the incinerator and burn them.

The Loaders had tended to stay away from him whenever he's wandering around T-Bone Junction. He figures Zylus must have them on standby or sleep if they're not doing anything. It's worth a shot to try to see if they listen to him. 

Said Loader clunks over and picks up the container. It says nothing to verify its order. Really Zylus, no working voice modulator either? Daltos shakes his head as he leaves the Loader to its task.

He tucks the Oz kit and gas mask back into the borrowed digistruct module. He misses his own digistruct modules. While confident in his own ability to brawl, having a gun (even just knowing it's there) would be nice.

When he comes back to the building Zylus lives in, Daltos is no longer mad at Zylus. He's just tired. He's not going to forget about the entire incident, of course. It might prove useful as blackmail material in the future.

As he walks past what's considered the living room, he sees that Zylus (seated in a chair) is repairing a surveyor, having taken it apart and is digging through its insides. Parts and tools are scattered on the floor around him.

Even one side of the nearby table is taken up by the resulting mess.

Zylus hasn't bothered to change back into his formal Dahl uniform, actually wearing casual clothing. In Daltos' opinion, it suits him better because really, Zylus isn't even part of the Dahl military anymore.

So there's no real reason for him to wear said uniform, unless he's just being stubborn.

Daltos entertains waking up in the middle of the night to secretly burn the uniform. It's too much trouble so he abandons the idea; Zylus would also probably murder him, even if he's doing Zylus a favor.

Zylus runs a hand through his hair as he puzzles over the wiring. His hair stands up in little tufts as a result. He's wearing an expression of deep concentration, lost in the task. There's no trace of his breakdown to be found on his face.

Good for him. It doesn't mean he's completely free of whatever issues he has, he's only gotten good at hiding them.

When Zylus thoughtfully turns the surveyor this way and that, the screwdriver in his lap topples to the floor. He leans out of his chair to pick it up, fingers rolling the tool into his hand. As he resettles in his chair, he sees Daltos standing in the doorway.

Daltos coolly looks away and goes to shower. 

Zylus has actually fucking left him clean clothes in the bathroom. Daltos isn't even surprised at this point. He's not even going to _try_ to feel annoyed.

Once he's showered and changed into clean clothes, he heads into the kitchen, realizing that it's been hours since he last ate.

Back in the living room, the surveyor's eye flickers on and off. It sputters out, refusing to relight.

Zylus heaves a frustrated sigh, slumping back in his chair and dropping the gutted surveyor onto the nearby table. It lands with a hollow 'thud'. He stays there for a few moments, wondering if he should stay or move.

Hunger is gnawing at his insides, so he gets up to see what can be done about that.

While thinking how to repair the surveyor, he almost bumps into Daltos (who's rummaging through his cupboards). Zylus notices at the last second and steps around him.

Daltos stops what he's doing to give him an neutral, cursory look.

"I can make something if you're hungry?" Zylus offers, unsure if he'll accept.

Daltos doesn't have his jacket on. Zylus can see the faint, healed-over impressions of burns along his bare arms. He slowly turns his head away before Daltos catches him staring.

"I don't know where you even keep half your stuff now," Daltos simply says, shutting the cupboard door.

"I'll take that as a yes," Zylus says, clearly amused. "Sorry, I moved some stuff around while you were...busy," He adds, making sure to sound apologetic.

The cupboards really had become a mess, so he'd sorted that out before it degenerated into further, complete chaos.

"Hm," is all Daltos has to say. Zylus opens the cupboard under the counter, pulling out the items he needs, eventually straightening up. He thinks Daltos has gone off to go read a book but then Daltos speaks. "Do you need help?"

Zylus goes very still, his hand hovering aboard the cupboard door. His fingers eventually curl around the wooden edge, his blunt nails scraping against it as his heart does its best to break out of his chest.

It takes Zylus five seconds to actually understand that Daltos is referring to helping him out in the kitchen and not something else, like his guilt or loneliness issues. 

Thankfully, Daltos is standing behind him so he doesn't quite see Zylus having tensed up and relaxing.

"No, I'll be fine. Go rest." Zylus' voice comes out sounding calm, not tipping Daltos off into his fleeting moment of panic.

"If you insist," is Daltos' equally calm reply. Zylus can hear him walk away. Before Daltos leaves, Zylus calls out to him.

"Hey, Daltos?"

"What?" Daltos stops to answer him.

"Thanks. For your help back there." Zylus closes the cupboard door. He doesn't hear Daltos respond, so he assumes that Daltos has already walked off after hearing him, but. He hasn't heard Daltos move. 

There's a disappointed sigh, so quiet but it fills up the room. Zylus barely hears it, automatically registering that it hadn't been himself who'd sighed. He turns his head to see Daltos has turned around to face him.

Daltos runs a tired hand through his hair (strange, how Zylus has never noticed that little grey streak until now). For one second, his expression is weary, but when Zylus has blinked and opened his eyes again, Daltos' expression has closed off.

"Let's go back to ignoring each other," Daltos says in an false cheery tone. "That was better." When he smiles, it's brittle.

Zylus instinctively wants to ask him what's wrong. He stops himself from doing so, because Daltos' words causes his blood to run cold. At first, Zylus thinks he's heard wrong, but he hasn't.

He'd heard Daltos loud and clear.

Daltos is watching him for a reaction. Zylus snaps out of his shock, shaking it off like it's nothing more than a minor hindrance. Now he's just _pissed_ , plain and simple.

"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry?" Zylus snaps at him, unable to hide it. The words languidly curl through the air towards Daltos. At once, Daltos is an open book again.

Daltos storms over, stopping in front of Zylus. He's standing so close that Zylus can almost feel the pent-up, volatile rage radiating off his body. Zylus steels himself for some sort of attack. 

None comes (which is perhaps worse). 

"Don't you _ever_ , say sorry," Daltos says in a deathly calm voice that causes a shiver to race down Zylus' spine and the hairs on the back of his head to stand on end. "Especially after everything you've said and done."

He saunters off like nothing had happened. That should have been as good a cue as any to drop the issue but Zylus has never exactly been good at obeying cues. Zylus runs after him, a hand stretching out to grab Daltos by the arm.

They stop in the middle of the hallway.

Daltos' gaze flicks to his hand before up to Zylus' face. His face is calm but Zylus can see in his eyes that he's just as pissed off. Zylus rapidly withdraws his hand before Daltos can break any of his fingers. 

"The same applies to you, you fucking prick," Zylus says in a tone that's completely opposite of that of Daltos' one.

"Fair enough," Daltos lightly says, his tone mocking. "I'm glad we sorted _that_ issue out." He turns to go. 

Zylus remembers something just before he walks back into the kitchen. He shouts it down the hallway at Daltos' retreating back. "What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't fucking know! Surprise me, I guess," Daltos shouts back before he heads outside to smoke.

\--

Daltos steps outside, dressed in his usual clothes instead of having borrowed clothes from Zylus. He'd woken up to see his old outfit left out at at the foot of the bed. If Zylus is trying to kill him with kindness, he's almost certainly succeeding.

His intuition leads him to the nearby garage where he suspects Zylus is. As he draws close, he can hear metallic scraping noises escape from the garage. Daltos ducks under the metal door that's left halfway open. 

Zylus is wrestling with a destroyed Atlas turret that's on the table in front of him. Like the surveyor, its innards are spread out across the nearby workbenches.

The turret keeps slipping (emitting the scraping noises that Daltos had heard earlier) on the table as Zylus attempts to extract something from it, without success. He keeps having to push the turret back onto the table. Zylus looks up, giving an acknowledging nod to Daltos before he returns to his task.

His hands and face are covered in grime, oil and what else. It looks all the more ridiculous to Daltos since Zylus is wearing his uniform this time. He moves behind Zylus to see what's giving him so much trouble. 

It's a charred but intact digistruct module that refuses to budge. Daltos moves around the other side to impatiently hang onto the base of the turret. That leaves Zylus free to pull with all his might, which he does. 

A shriek of metal and Zylus stumbles back, the module clutched in one hand. He shoots a triumphant grin at Daltos. It fades, replaced by a neutral look as he turns to put the module away.

That destroys what brief satisfaction Daltos might have felt, replaced by hurt. He sweeps it aside. It's not like he'd expected them to be all that friendly with one another, considering the state of things.

The turret is exchanged for a damaged Loader. Daltos recognizes a Drifter's handiwork, ragged holes (the size of his hand) punched straight through the robot's abdomen and limbs. Zylus hands him a few tools that he takes.

The two of them start to deconstruct the Loader in uneasy silence, each of them focusing on one side. Zylus starts to replace the damaged limbs with new ones.

A stray wire dangles from one sheared arm. As he moves to cut the uneven end, Daltos mistakenly brushes a hand against it, just for one second. 

It zaps him and he jumps back, dropping the wire cutters from his other hand. The cutters hits the floor, the sound echoing through the garage. Daltos sighs, flexing his hand. 

All he'd felt was the tiniest jolt; fortunately, he'd been wearing his gloves. Zylus appears by him, moving to take his hand to look at it. 

Zylus' overbearing concern is beginning to fucking bother him, grating on his nerves now that he's healed up. Whatever medication Lalnable had sent over are doing their job well. He hasn't felt his heart playing up since he'd started taking them.

Clearly, Lalnable's warning is still fresh in Zylus' mind when Daltos had forgotten all about it.

Daltos snatches his hand back. 

"For fuck's sake, I'm not a delicate snowflake," Daltos snaps at Zylus. "That's not going to kill me."

"You don't have to help then," Zylus retorts, giving him an annoyed look. "I didn't ask for your help in the first place." He pauses, massaging the bridge of his nose, leaving another smear of oil across it that he doesn't notice. "Look, stop being stubborn and let me see your hand."

Daltos steps back. After a moment of indecision results in two options: yell at Zylus or leave. He opts for the latter option to avoid making things worse than they already are. He ducks under the door, vanishing from sight, leaving Zylus alone with a stormy silence that quickly fills up the garage.

Zylus finishes fixing the Loader, wiping off the grime stuck to his face with a clean rag. He tosses it aside. Instead of reactivating the Loader, he messages BebopVox for Daltos' location. 

> He is on a nearby rooftop, smoking.  
> Please be careful.

Smoking? Zylus thanks BebopVox and heads off to find Daltos. He wonders how Daltos had gotten up onto a rooftop but he remembers that there are ladders everywhere. He finds a ladder close by and climbs up it. 

A leap across a gap between buildings and he lands across from Daltos. Daltos is sitting against a wall, a tendril of grey smoke drifting up from the lit cigarette in his mouth. A glance informs Zylus that he seems moody and tense.

Zylus watches him for a few moments, thinking he can hop back over the gap and leave Daltos to smoke away his anger. Before he can, Daltos takes the cigarette out of his mouth to speak. 

"What do you want? Here to coddle me again?" Daltos' tone is practically dripping sarcasm (and it is caustic like acid that _burns_ because he's right).

Zylus can feel his temper take offense, rising to the challenge but he forces himself to count to ten. He is considerably calmer by the time he's done. No violence. He can handle this without wanting to murder Daltos.

"Since when did you start smoking?" Zylus moves closer, settling next to Daltos. He's careful to put enough distance between them to account for any unpredictability on Daltos' part. "You didn't smoke the last time I saw you..."

He neglects to mention that the last time they'd seen each other (in person) had been back on the Dahl frigate. 

"Things change," is Daltos' blunt response but it's not laced with sarcasm this time.

Things have changed. There's no point in denying it.

Things have changed enough for a bandit to be right? Granted, it's not just any bandit, it's Daltos. It's never exactly bothered Zylus before but now that Daltos is wearing his original clothes again, he's reminded of it.

Zylus gently diverts his mind from going down a dark, familiar path that his hate for bandits is beckoning him towards. In an effort to distract himself, an impulse springs up that he's all too happy to seize.

"Give me one," He abruptly says to Daltos. 

Daltos blinks and turns his head to survey Zylus with a quizzical expression on his face. "What?" 

"Give me your cigarette and lighter. I want to try smoking."

That causes Daltos to raise an amused eyebrow. He fishes around in the pockets of his jacket with his free hand. The box of cigarettes and lighter are tossed in Zylus' direction.

Zylus catches both before pulling out a cigarette. Having seen him do so a few times, he mimics him in lighting up the cigarette. The box and lighter are tossed back. Daltos carefully tucks them back into his jacket. 

Zylus ends up coughing for a full minute or so. Once the coughing has mostly subsided, he says, “This is _horrible_ , I don't get the appeal. How can you stand this?" He makes a face.

Much to his surprise, Daltos ducks his head, appearing to quietly chuckle. A moment later, it transforms into full blown laughter. It's so reminiscent of the Daltos that Zylus once knew; he looks away, feeling his heart give a nostalgic twinge. 

When Daltos stops laughing, he says, "You'll eventually get the hang of it."

"No thanks." Zylus crushes the cigarette under his foot after he gets up. "Don't these things eventually kill?'

"And water is wet," Daltos responds without a trace of humor.

\--

When Daltos closes his eyes, he can momentarily forget about the technical and focus on the wind ruffling his hair. It almost feels like he's in a Buzzard. However, since it's hard to ignore the rhythm, sounds and vibrations of the technical, Daltos opens his eyes.

He could do with a target to shoot at to relieve the immense boredom he's currently experiencing. Alas, nothing dares to offer itself up as target practice.

Zylus is driving (the radio turned down low and set to some station named after Fyrestone). Daltos is riding shotgun in the turret. Zylus doesn't quite trust him all alone in T-Bone Junction but trusts him with the turret.

That’s an odd thing to claim and do, considering Daltos had been on his best behavior while injured. That might be stretching it a little but still.

Hence, why Zylus has dragged him along to go find spare parts for his spaceship. It seems like they're headed towards a scrapyard that Zylus says has a good chance of containing the parts he needs. 

Daltos would very much like to hijack the fucking technical from Zylus but Zylus is likely to retaliate. He'd gotten a taste of that during their first meeting and Daltos isn't keen on repeating that experience again, now that he's completely healed up. Zylus isn't likely to hold back the next time he tries something similar.

When he had a spare moment, he'd used the ECHO device that he'd found to leave instructions for his second-in-commands. 

He hadn't wanted to raise any further risk of Zylus finding out so he'd turned off and hidden the ECHO device again so his bandits couldn't call him back. He hasn't used it since.

If he comes back to a destroyed frigate, he's going to track down every single one of the inept morons who'd been in charge and break every bone in their body.

And that's _if_ he's in a _good_ mood by the time he finds them. He tends to get _creative_ when he's in a bad mood.

The technical has left the sandy desert behind for scrubland populated by scraggly bushes and desiccated trees. The highway thins out into a worn two lane road that's cracking in places. Holes have sprung up here and there on it.

The technical skips over them due to how fast and recklessly Zylus is driving. Given that Daltos has to catch a ride with his lackeys for the rare times he has to leave the frigate, he thinks his bandits drive better than Zylus, for fuck's sake.

If Zylus is indeed trying to give him motion sickness with his driving, it's not going to work. Daltos finds that he's enjoying the risk Zylus is taking in simply going flat out on the road. 

Zylus stops at a gas station after they've been on the road for about an hour. He climbs out and starts refueling the technical. Daltos climbs out as well, glad to stretch his legs. 

"I'm going to go pay," Zylus informs him. Daltos just nods, moving to lean against the technical to patiently wait.

A convoy of bandit vehicles roll up next to him in the next lane. Daltos pays little attention to them. That is, until several of their members climb out to refuel. One of them peers closely at him as they pass by. He meets their staring with an annoyed look.

The bandit who's staring nudges his friend in the side. When his friend doesn't react, he nudges again and harder.

"Ow! What do you want, skag licker?" He turns to regard his friend before cuffing said friend upside the head.

"That hurt," They whine. "It's Daltos," They proceed to urgently whisper. "He's actually _here_." Unfortunately, Daltos can hear them from where he's standing since they're not really whispering. 

The bandit who was elbowed shoots a skeptical look in Daltos' direction. Their eyes go wide. "Holy shit."

"Staring's rude, assholes," Daltos grumbles loud enough for them to hear. Their colors and logo seem familiar but Daltos can't quite place it.

"Well, well, look who we have here," Someone booms. The leader of the convoy pauses in refueling their ride (a bright red beast of a Monster) to stomp over, stopping in front of Daltos to peer intensely at him. 

A bandit lackey scrambles to take over refueling for their leader.

Daltos has to crane his head back to fully meet the leader's glowing red eyes through the black slits in his helmet. "And you are?" Daltos asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You don't remember us?" The leader blinks, a little taken aback. He recovers though. "Remember the Salt Flats?" He peevishly asks.

"Nope," Daltos replies. He really doesn't remember; he's conquered a lot of gangs and it's difficult to remember the ones that hadn't really stood out. "I remember winning but that's the extent of my memory at that place."

"You stomped the everloving shit out of my bandits and then got almost all of them to join you!" The leader accuses. 

"I didn't make them join me. It's called 'free will'," Daltos points out. "It exists for a _reason_." The tittering bandits fall silent for a moment. They look around them as if they expect more bandits to pop up out of nowhere. 

"Oh yeah, where's _your_ bandit gang?" The leader retorts when they realize it's just Daltos.

Daltos scoffs. "Certainly not being a waste of time and space like you lot are," He says with the slightest bit of pride in his tone. He is not nervous about being outnumbered (and if he really wanted to be cocky, he would have said it's only fair).

"Look at how he thinks he's still so high and mighty, even without his peons to back him up," The leader sneers. "Let's see if he's still so high and mighty after we rip him from limb to limb!"

The bandits behind him perk up with the idea, murmurs of agreement and nods going around.

"You say that like it's a bad thing. I'm sure I can take on you lot, even without guns," Daltos says with a laugh. He stops leaning against the technical.

Some of the bandits throw uneasy looks at one another, suddenly hesitating to attack. Some of them whisper 'it's a trap'. The leaders spies their discomfort. He mockingly jabs a finger at Daltos before jerking his thumb back at the bandits behind him. 

"He thinks he can take us on, single-handedly!" He laughs but starts screaming in pain when Daltos has casually reached up and broken his thumb.

Daltos draws back with a sadistic grin; the ugly snap of bone had been rather _satisfying_. He'd missed the sound.

"You were saying?'" He smugly asks. 

"This is nothing! Get him!" The bandit leader roars while clutching their broken hand. The bandits and Daltos move to engage one another but a voice drifts to over them, loud and authoritative.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you fine gentlemen, but I'd rather solve this without having to fire this baby but that's up to you," Zylus says from the gas station's doorway. He's digistructed a rocket launcher and is pointing it at the leader.

"Who's this joker?" One of the bandits asks. Another bandit sees the mildly annoyed look on Daltos' face upon Zylus butting in.

"He's with Daltos!"

"Is this your boyfriend?" One jeers.

"Bit of a right looker he is!" More admiring comments amongst jeers flow forth. 

Zylus flushes slightly at their comments but hefts the rocket launcher higher. "I'm serious about firing this thing this close to the gas station!" Silence falls. The tension stretches out like a taunt, thin string about to be cut.

"Wait, so is he your boyfriend or not?" An inquiring voice pipes up.

"Yes, he's _definitely_ my boyfriend," Daltos sarcastically says before impatiently asking, "Are you going to fight me or not?"

All hell breaks loose.

The bandit leader falls back to the safety of the convoy, letting their bandits charge forward. The bandits almost trip over each other in their eagerness to shed blood. Zylus fires a rocket straight at the leader; the leader ducks behind the nearest Monster. 

It goes up in a minor explosion that knocks the bandits nearby off their feet and shakes the ground.

"My car!" Someone wails.

"Not sorry!" Zylus shouts at whoever had wailed. 

He tracks the bandit leader moving along the convoy line and lets off the second last round of rockets, letting them spiral through the air and hit the line of vehicles. A domino effect of explosions, flames and debris results all along the line.

Zylus watches it, all too satisfied at the destruction he's just caused.

The bandit leader had tried to reach the machine gun turret at the head of the line; they're nowhere to be seen when Zylus scans the decimated line of vehicles. Someone lunges at him with a buzzsaw. He doesn't quite dodge in time since he's in the middle of despawning his rocket launcher.

This time, he's wearing a shield.

The jagged edges of the buzzsaw glances off him, draining some of his shield's charge. His shield spits out a booster. It arcs in the air before hitting the ground, turning a neat circle on the ground before it comes to a sudden stop. It topples over.

Zylus dives out of the way behind a pile of crates, just as the booster discharges its lightning. The shock electrocutes the bandits unfortunate enough to have gathered around the booster when trying to get at him.

They fall to the ground, their bodies smoking. Zylus emerges from his hiding spot. 

He picks up the drained booster, pulling out a shotgun and letting out a volley of rounds that causes blood to gush out and spray out of the bandits blocking his way. He steps over the bodies, shooting and reloading. 

Zylus can't see Daltos; the thought of Daltos escaping during the chaos is troubling.

He finds Daltos well in the center of a brawl, busy cracking skulls and holding his own. Bodies have already piled up around him. There's a fresh bruise on his face and a cut has opened up along his forehead but he seems to be enjoying himself.

The bandits surrounding him remain clear of his reach, all too willing to sacrifice one another to whittle down Daltos' endurance. It seems like they're waiting to charge without fear of Daltos annihilating them in turn. 

Oh fuck, he's not wearing a shield; Zylus had examined Daltos' shield from back when he'd taken it off him and had discovered it to be broken. Daltos had never seen the need to replace it, given the lack of danger in T-Bone Junction.

Someone pulls out a rifle and is about to pull the trigger on Daltos. Zylus shoots first, bullets ripping through their body and causing it to fold over and hit the ground. He steps over the body and starts eliminating the bandits who've noticed him. They turn to open fire on him. 

His shield spits out another booster that takes out more of them with a crackle of electricity.

"Daltos!" He shouts over the din. He pulls out Daltos' digistruct modules from his inventory.

Daltos looks up from having caught someone in a chokehold. He snaps their neck before shouting back, "What?"

"Take these!" Zylus tosses both of Daltos’ digistruct modules and a spare shield to him. Daltos catches them and clips them on. The shield flares at it takes an immediate hit as someone attempts to stab Daltos in the back a second later.

Daltos grabs their arm. He walks behind them, bending their arm behind their back, causing them to drop the knife. Daltos pulls out a bladed pistol and cleanly slits their throat. He lets them fall, already moving onto the next target.

"Why did you pick a fight with this lot?" Zylus shouts.

Daltos headshots someone who's bearing down on Zylus from behind with an axe. They scream and start clawing at their face as the incendiary rounds blazes its way through their head. Daltos reloads as Zylus turns to finish them off with a single shotgun round.

His shotgun's run out of ammo so he switches to an assault rifle. He provides covering fire for Daltos as the two of them stop to crouch behind metal containers for cover.

"I didn't pick the fight!" Daltos retorts, switching out the bladed pistol for a SMG and firing back on the bandits who are starting to fall back. 

"Yes, you did! You knew exactly what to say to these bandits to get them to fight you!" Zylus tosses a grenade at the remaining vehicles near the end of the convoy being used as cover. He glares at Daltos.

The grenade destroys two of the technicals but he hardly pays attention to it.

"I didn't say _anything_." Daltos rolls his eyes, nailing a panicking bandit (on fire) in the head with a well-placed burst of gunfire from his SMG. They go down, missing half their head.

"That's not what I heard, coming out of the gas station," Zylus counters once he's moved to join Daltos behind his cover.

"You might need to get your ears checked," Daltos notes. "Too many rockets." He holds a hand out to request ammo. Zylus hands him some and Daltos reloads.

"I do not need to get my ears checked, you _asshole_ ," Zylus insists as he tosses back a grenade that'd landed near them. It explodes in the distance, uprooting bushes and a chunk from the ground.

"If you have to blame someone, blame them," Daltos points out. "I was just minding my own business when they decided to start shit."

Zylus concentrates on digistructing his rocket launcher, carefully aiming it before firing off the last round. It explodes.

The impact damages an incendiary barrel that proceeds to explode in a spectacular fashion, sending out flames that swallow the remaining convoy vehicles and the bandits hiding behind them.

"Nice shot," Daltos says, giving him an approving look. Zylus puts away the empty rocket launcher. 

"Thanks," Zylus says before he can help it. He squashes the tiniest bit of pride that'd welled up in his chest at the compliment, not wishing to make it a habit to accept compliments from Daltos.

There's a few bandits left who're struggling to get to their feet. Daltos leaves cover to finish his rampage. Zylus looks away as the sound of Daltos' SMG rings out.

The gas station is now empty of life, save for the two of them. There hadn't been anybody else (civilians or travelers) around to get caught in the crossfire. The gas station is automated so there's nobody who's running it who has to bother about cleaning up the mess.

Still, Zylus runs a hand down his face and heaves a dismayed sigh at the resulting signs of chaos.

He hadn't been holding back on the bandits at all (and neither had Daltos). It's a miracle how the gas station is still standing, not having exploded at any point during the fight. Daltos comes back to him, looking pleased. The SMG in his hand vanishes.

Noticing the still bleeding cut on Daltos' forehead, Zylus tosses a cloth at Daltos. Daltos catches it, wiping away at the blood on his face and gloves. Other than that, the two of them are fine. Zylus doesn't even have a scratch on him.

Zylus proceeds to start looting the bodies for anything useful. Daltos moves away from the gas station to have a (well-deserved) smoke after tossing the blood stained cloth into the nearby bin. The cut on his forehead is already scabbing shut. 

Ten minutes later, he extinguishes the cigarette and quietly moves to stand behind Zylus. Zylus is crouched over a body.

Daltos draws his SMG. He points it right at the back of Zylus' head. Zylus hasn't appeared to have noticed him, too busy counting the money he'd pried out of the dead bandit's inventory.

One pull of the trigger and Zylus is dead; the SMG Daltos uses is one of the highest damaging guns Dahl's ever produced. Zylus' shield will never survive and the bullets will go right through him. Daltos' aim is steady.

There's almost nothing stopping him from executing Zylus right that second, taking the technical and driving back to the Dahl Headland.

Except Daltos knows that Zylus is keeping the A.I. Core he'd stolen from the Dahl frigate years ago somewhere in T-Bone Junction. He hasn't figured out precisely _where_ Zylus is keeping it but it's only a matter of time.

The frigate won't run properly without an A.I. Core. Until he gets that core back, he's not going anywhere. 

They'll never be anything but enemies; Zylus is only deluding himself if he thinks there's even the tiniest chance that their relationship can be salvaged. Or so that's what Daltos tells himself.

Zylus can live (for now).

Daltos despawns his SMG, walking off to wait for Zylus by the technical. Daltos usually doesn't smoke twice in a row but today is an exception.

Meanwhile, Zylus is all too happy to pretend that he hadn't noticed Daltos pointing the SMG at the back of his head. He didn’t know why Daltos had let him live.

It's definitely not sentimentality that'd driven Daltos to not shoot him. Zylus makes a mental note to be more careful in the future and to never turn his back on Daltos. He'd been lucky this time; next time, he's not sure if Daltos can resist the temptation to be permanently rid of him if another opportunity arises.

Zylus can't risk leaving him alone in T-Bone Junction to discover BebopVox. He's not sure why Daltos is cooperating in letting himself be dragged around like this. Zylus also isn't positive how to get Daltos to not start trouble, sure that any warning will just be ignored.

Upon finishing his looting, he climbs back into the technical, waiting until Daltos has climbed into the turret. He starts the technical and they leave the gas station behind.

"You can keep your digistruct modules," Zylus informs Daltos five minutes later. "Don't bother trying to check if your ECHO device is in there, I took the liberty of removing it earlier."

"Fine by me," Daltos replies, shrugging like it's no big deal. Zylus puzzles over his lack of concern for a few seconds but decides not to think any more of it. While the day hadn't gone badly, Zylus would have preferred to do without being shot at.

"Good job back there, by the way," Zylus deadpans. 

"Thanks," Daltos smugly says.

Zylus gives a shake of his head. "Because that just used up the last of my rocket launcher ammo and that's not cheap." Daltos gives a short bark of harsh laughter.

"That's what you get for using rockets."

"Also, _boyfriend_ , really?" Zylus adds, indignant.

There's a beat as Daltos stops laughing to digests his words. When he speaks, he sounds annoyed.

"Do you just not understand _sarcasm_ or are you being deliberately asinine?" Daltos pauses. "Because I was being sarcastic back there." Zylus can feel Daltos giving him a pointed look. 

He can't take his eyes off the road to return that look, choosing to remain silent. Yes, he understands sarcasm but he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it because things between them are still very bad. If they've been getting along, it's because they have to and not out of any basic attempts to reconcile.

He's also sick to death of them arguing, so horribly afraid of what will happen if either of them push back just a little bit too hard. 

"You don't like the term? Okay then, would you prefer darling? Sweetheart?" Daltos sarcastically says when Zylus hasn't responded. "Honey? Pumpkin? Anything to announce to the world that we're definitely, positively, fuck-"

Zylus slams on the brakes, causing Daltos to cut himself off mid-sentence as he grunts in pain from the sudden stop.

"I get it! I wouldn't want to you to be my boyfriend, considering how easily you wiped out those bandits back there, you murderer!" Zylus leans back in the driver's seat, his chest heaving.

The last part is mostly a smokescreen and he's glad Daltos isn't sitting next to him because his face has gone uncomfortably warm. He does not like the implications from his reaction.

Daltos unknowingly takes the bait (much to Zylus' relief). "It's the pot calling the kettle black because you also happened to kill your fair share of them too," He calmly points out.

"I'm not the one going around picking fights just to kill people for the fun of it."

"As I said, they started it, not me. You and I just finished it."

"Don't lump me in with you," Zylus softly says, feigning discomfort.

"You're just as much of a murderer as I am, Zylus. My body count might be significantly higher than yours but you still have a body count, all the same," Daltos says, appearing to relish Zylus' apparent discomfort.

"At least I'm not the one killing innocent people."

"Really? I only kill bandits who don't want to join me since they wasted a perfectly good opportunity." Daltos raps the side of the technical with his knuckles as if to say 'can we move'. "And people who try to kill me. It's just self-defense. Or is that illegal these days?"

There's nothing he can say in response. Zylus notices that his face isn't warm anymore. He starts up the technical, easing it back into motion.

Daltos is only just going to twist his words around just to be right, so Zylus lets him think he's won for now. Daltos laughs. It's not a cruel laugh but it's chilling, all the same.

"It'll be much easier if you just accept that fact instead of fighting it like that Vault Hunter is doing or you'll crack someday. Preferably when I'm there to witness it."

Zylus refrains from answering that he's long since come to terms with it. It's just about the only thing he's come to accept. Everything else (the guilt, loneliness and hostility) is still waiting their turn, content to unexpectedly trip him up, even on a good day.

The real issue here is that back there, it'd felt completely natural to fight alongside him. This Daltos sitting in the turret is not the Daltos that he remembers, in more ways than one. That bothers him more than he’d like to admit.

So why can't he move on while Daltos has?

\--

Zylus wakes to a notification that his HUD is relentlessly pinging when he opens it to check the time. It's well into morning. The sun manages to peek through the closed blinds, lighting the room up with a harsh yellow glow. He's dismayed to find out that he's slept through his alarm.

He softly groans, rubbing at his mechanical eye with the palm of his hand, so sorely tempted to ignore whoever is calling and go back to sleep. On the other hand, he doesn't get ECHOed that often, so it has to be important. 

A pleasant, bone-deep ache has sprung up overnight. Zylus can feel it when he sits up, finally deigning to respond to the ECHO call. He suppresses a yawn, ignoring the blurriness in his right eye from the lack of his monocle. 

"Zylus speaking, who's calling?"

"Zylus, it's Brent of the Dead Workers Party calling. We got some parts you might be interested in if you're up for trading?" Brent drawls. The sound of motorcycle engines almost drowns out Brent's words.

"Brent! Yes, I'd be happy to trade. How far away from T-Bone Junction are you?" Zylus instantly forgets about sleeping in favor of swinging both legs over the side of the bed. 

"We're about an hour away since we're taking a pit stop at a banged up gas station, but we'll head off once Eric gets back from the bathroom." Laughter drifts over the call at that comment.

"ECHO me when you're about fifteen minutes away so I can lower the shield," Zylus says, cheered up by the thought of Dead Workers Party passing through.

"Will do. See you soon," Brent drawls before the call drops. 

Okay, now Zylus has to shower, get fully dressed, make some coffee, eat something and look presentable in the span of an hour. Easy.

There's just one small problem: Zylus has no idea where the fuck his clothes are located in the room.

The most he's got on is underwear so that helps him out somewhat. He gives up searching in favor of pulling out a clean set of clothes, but the only thing he only has one of is his jacket. He'd really like that back, for obvious reasons (it being irreplaceable, for starters).

His ECHO call has woken up Daltos. Daltos sits up, wincing at the sounds of Zylus turning the room upside down for his jacket, clean clothes slung over one arm. 

"What's the rush?" Daltos mumbles sleepily. 

"I got incoming guests," Zylus answers, growing more frantic by the second. He stops by Daltos' side of the bed, peering suspiciously at him. "Where did you throw my jacket?"

Daltos smirks. "Out the window," He easily replies.

Zylus despairs for a moment that he might have actually done so before spotting his jacket peeking out from under the bed. He fishes it out and dusts it off before throwing it over his arm. 

"Why?" Zylus asks, giving him an annoyed look before moving to find his digistruct modules next.

"It deserves to be burned," Daltos deadpans. "Why do you even still wear that outfit, you're not even with Dahl anymore." 

Zylus pretends he hasn't heard him, having found his digistruct modules on Daltos' bedside table. A quick check of the contents reveals that they're his and not Daltos'. He pulls out the monocle for his eye and slides it on, causing the world to come into focus. 

Daltos is proving unhelpful, simply content to watch him rush around the room. He proceeds to look amused when Zylus runs a hand through his hair in an attempt to make it less messy.

The hair around the back of his head is particularly bad. He's only making it worse, if Daltos' growing smirk is anything to go by. Zylus sighs and goes off to shower before he wastes more time with banter.

He has a feeling he's beaten his own personal record for fastest shower ever by the time he leaves the bathroom, feeling slightly more presentable.

Daltos is only just getting out of bed, having guessed that Zylus is done with the bathroom.

By the time Zylus has eaten something and downed a strong cup of coffee (leaving enough for Daltos), he has about half an hour left. He remembers to message BebopVox about lowering the shield well in advance.

> Good morning. Did you sleep well last night?

It's BebopVox's usual morning greeting but Zylus has no idea how to answer. Yes, he slept well. A little _too well_ , given that he'd completely slept through his alarm and is now having to rush.

Daltos walks into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee. Zylus is more than happy to blame him but he has a feeling that BebopVox will take it too literally. Zylus dashes off a generic response.

If he's quick, he can round up the usual supplies and items (with BebopVox's help) to trade with Dead Workers Party and have about five minutes left to spare.

True to his estimation, he's got five minutes left. Zylus heads back to the kitchen to slump into one of the chairs there for a quick breather. Daltos just gives him an thoroughly amused look from the chair opposite him.

Zylus shoots him a dirty look. "Whatever happened to your old outfit?" He asks, giving into his curiosity.

"My formal Dahl uniform?" Daltos looks thoughtful for a moment. "Burned it the day after I became a Bandit Lord," He explains. That does not surprise Zylus at all. 

"And the bars?" Zylus risks asking, gesturing to the ones on his own head. He should ask Lalnable if he can get those successfully removed.

"After somebody insinuated I might still be with Dahl, I ripped them straight out of my forehead," Daltos recalls fondly, a satisfied smirk appearing on his face.

"Are you serious?" Zylus asks, inclined to disbelieve if it weren't for the scars in the exact same spot.

"Right in front of them too," Daltos adds with a dark chuckle. "They threw up because of all the blood and then I shot them." He gestures vaguely with a hand. "Nobody's ever questioned where my loyalties lie ever since."

Zylus stares at the scars where the bars on Daltos' forehead would be. He's been on Pandora long enough to not feel nauseous at such stories but he's morbidly curious about the aftermath.

"Did it hurt?" It's a stupid question but considering Daltos' inhuman tolerance for pain, he wants to know if Daltos had remained standing after.

"You think?" He gives Zylus a brief searching look. "Oh, you want to know if I passed out." He leans back in his chair.

"Yes, so I can never let you live it down," Zylus says with a grin.

"For the record, I'd _never_ pass out from such a small flesh wound." Daltos stops talking, an odd, almost pained expression appearing on his face. 

"You okay? Is your heart hurting-"

"My heart's fine," Daltos interrupts him. When he speaks, it's in an even tone. "My bandits kicked up a major fuss about tracking down somebody with the same blood type so I could get a transfusion."

"Did you let them?"

"No. Too much trouble and I didn't want to catch anything from some stranger's blood." Daltos stops to take a sip of coffee from his mug before continuing. "Besides, I didn't lose that much blood, it just looked like I did."

Zylus senses they're approaching dangerous territory and moves to change the course of conversation.

"I suppose it's a good thing that it healed over," He says. His HUD pings. "Sorry, I got to take a call." Zylus ducks into his HUD to attend to Brent. Daltos just nods, turning his attention elsewhere. 

"Zylus, we're in view of T-Bone Junction!" Brent shouts over the wind and sound of engines.

"Shield's already down. I'll see you in the center of town!" Zylus says.

"See you soon!" Brent shouts, amidst much cheering from around him.

\--

Zylus can spot the bikers long before they arrive, their outlines weaving along the highway towards T-Bone Junction. There's about thirty bikers in total, each of them on their own bikes.

He climbs down from the roof as the lead biker comes to a gentle stop in the center of town. Brent pushes his goggles up to his forehead, grinning a gap-toothed smile at Zylus and resting back on his bike.

"Howdy and how are you today, my friend?" He casually drawls, scratching at his scraggly beard with a leather gloved hand.

"Brent! Good to see you. The last time you passed through here must have been a couple of months ago," Zylus says, extending a hand. Brent takes it and enthusiastically pumps it up and down; Zylus feels the strength in his grip through Brent's glove.

A second later, Brent climbs off his bike to pull Zylus into a bear hug. Zylus laughs, attempting to disentangle himself from the hug. Brent finally lets go of him, still grinning. 

"We would have dropped by sooner but a couple of my bikers got really sick," Brent informs him with a sad shake of his head. "Had to wait for them to get better before we could move on."

"Was it the plague going around?" Zylus asks, stepping back. Brent seems well at a glance.

The rest of the bikers start to arrive, some of them squabbling over parking spots. Others climb off their bikes to walk around, stretching their legs and chatting amongst themselves. A few dare to stand at the edge of T-Bone Junction to survey the desert.

"Nah, just something bad they ate. They'll think twice about the 'five second' rule now," Brent assures him, dispelling his worries. "Hello, who's this?" He says, having spotted Daltos standing behind Zylus near the Loaders.

Daltos is watching the bikers with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. Zylus gestures to Daltos to come over, hoping that he does so without putting up a fight. Surprisingly, he obeys, coming to stand next to him. 

Brent raises his eyebrows so high that they disappear under his bandana and goggles. 

"This is Daltos," Zylus quickly says. "He's..." He pauses, unsure how to describe their relationship. Brent looks between the two of them, his grin not budging.

"A friend," Daltos calmly answers for Zylus. "I'm on vacation."

That works. Zylus suppresses a sigh of relief. He's not happy that they're lying to Brent, but Brent shouldn't draw any further assumptions (or so he hopes). Brent's eyebrows come back down.

"I see. Nice to meet you, Daltos," Brent drawls, holding out a hand. Daltos shakes his hand politely. "What brings you all the way to T-Bone Junction instead of Wam Bam Island?"

"Zylus is an old friend and it's the last place my bandits will think of searching for me," Daltos explains. "Just needed a quiet place to lie low before heading back."

Zylus almost shoots a dirty look at him, but he refrains since the lies are flowing so smoothly for Brent to not suspect a thing.

"Cool, which bandit gang are you with?"

"Blitzkrieg Blighters, Dahl Headland."

"He runs them, actually," Zylus helpfully supplies. Brent shoots Zylus an impressed look before giving Daltos a searching one. 

"You're pulling my leg, Zylus," Brent says, sounding skeptical. 

"He's not," Daltos says with a small smile. 

"Wow. I never dreamed I'd meet a Bandit Lord in person," Brent says, looking awed. Daltos seems pleased. "Sorry for not believing you." He gives an apologetic nod in Zylus' direction.

"It's okay since Daltos isn't that impressive in person," Zylus says with a grin. Daltos elbows him hard in the side, causing Zylus to wince but laugh. It's worth the pain; he rubs at his side, grimacing nonetheless.

"Hey! Eric! Come here and say hi to Zylus and Daltos!" Brent yells at the bikers milling around. The bikers start shouting for 'Eric'. 

Eric pops up by Brent, blinking curiously at the three through smudged glasses, his dark brown hair in disarray from the wind. He's covered in dust, more so than the other bikers. Zylus notes that he seems fine as well.

"Hi," Eric says, a little breathlessly and grinning brightly. Introductions are made (and the white lies take root). "Cool, cool," Eric says, nodding.

"How long are you staying this time?" Zylus asks Brent and Eric. 

"We won't take up too much of your time," Eric says, glancing at Brent for confirmation. Brent nods.

"We'll leave at sunset, as usual. That should let my bikers catch some much needed 'zzz's, fix whatever needs to be fixed..." Brent says. 

"You can help us out with one of our bikes that's been a bit wonky since it collided with a technical a while back," Eric cheerfully picks up where Brent had trailed off. "We'll pay you for your help, of course."

"I'll see what I can do, but bikes aren't my specialty," Zylus says, sounding thoughtful. 

"I can take a look at it," Daltos volunteers.

Zylus has to refrain from giving Daltos a surprised look; he realizes that it's not surprising for Daltos to fix bikes, considering his expertise with technicals, Buzzards and whatever else a bandit gang uses to get around.

"Great!" Eric beams. "We've got things to trade with you too, of course."

"I can take a look at what you have now," Zylus brightly says. "And get the Loaders ready to move anything heavy."

"In that case," Brent cheerfully says, turning around. He starts shouting at some of the bikers to get the stuff for Zylus out. The bikers scramble to obey him.

Zylus carefully avoids looking directly at Daltos, settling for a sideways glance. Daltos just seems mildly amused by the proceedings, the wariness completely gone from his expression now that Dead Workers Party doesn't seem to pose much of a threat to him.

\--

The rest of the day passes in a blur. Zylus spends the majority of the time catching up with Brent and Eric as well as hanging out with the bikers. They trade stories, news, rumors and gossip over food and drink. The outside world hasn't changed (much).

Zylus manages to obtain several secondhand parts for T-Bone Junction, Loaders and his spaceship. The bikers in turn, had accepted supplies (what he had in excess, at any rate), scrap metal and leftover parts. He's glad he's saved the latter two instead of dropping them off at a scrapyard. It'd been a very satisfying trade.

The loneliness inside of Zylus has retreated for the time being, nowhere to be seen. He's also kept busy, so it never even occurs to him to even feel guilty. He can't actually remember the last time he'd been this at ease. 

Daltos is behaving. He chats to the bikers if they initiate conversation but otherwise, keeps to himself. He sticks to the garage, content to be repairing and fine-tuning bikes. Zylus checks up on him a few times, mostly to give him bottles of water and food. He takes them with a grateful nod, never quite saying anything to him.

The two of them still despise each other, but at least they can talk without any of the usual animosity suddenly rearing its head. It's also to keep the ruse they've set up going.

When sunset falls, the bikers assemble to leave. A few of them press tips on Daltos and Zylus for their help and hospitality. They awkwardly accept them, unused to such generosity. 

The bikers also had an ample supply of rakk ale that they'd been sharing around in the last hour or so. Brent and Eric had insisted on gifting a crate to them. 

"No takesies backsies!" Brent had declared and had crossed his arms over his chest, grinning the entire time. Of course Zylus had accepted (how could he not?).

With a mighty, rumbling roar of engines that causes the air to vibrate with a restless energy, Dead Workers Party depart in single file, Brent leading the way out of T-Bone Junction and Eric bringing up the rear. The bikers wave in farewell as they depart, each of them vanishing down the highway, eventually becoming a line of tiny dots that finally disappear. 

Zylus and Daltos watch from a rooftop. The two of them are exhausted from the day's events. They are also, incredibly drunk.

Daltos takes a swing from the bottle of rakk ale in his hand, feeling it go down with a satisfying burn. The alcohol is making his thoughts swim, clouding his head and bringing about a pleasant, warm buzz to his entire being.

The bottle now empty, he sets it aside. He's sitting next to Zylus, both of their legs dangling out over the edge of the rooftop. Zylus finishes his bottle of rakk ale off as well. He eventually puts it aside (with a soft 'clink') as well, yawning.

A slight weight drops onto Daltos' shoulder, causing him to start. He glances down to see Zylus leaning against him, his eyes sliding shut. Daltos almost shoves him away but decides there's no harm in letting him stay there. Zylus isn't proving to be much of a threat in such an inebriated state. 

If he falls asleep, Daltos is just going to shove him off the rooftop and claim 'accident'.

They'll have to move soon since it's getting dark fast. The fluorescent lights in T-Bone Junction are starting to flicker on, causing the stars overhead to wink out of sight. Also, Daltos is not helping Zylus down the ladder.

Above them, the shield is restored by BebopVox, causing the sky to momentarily ripple like a newly disturbed pond. It eventually goes still. Neither Zylus or Daltos notice.

"Daltos," Zylus eventually mumbles, ignoring the notification from BebopVox. 

"What?"

"Did we just get drunk with bikers?" Daltos can hear the grin in Zylus' voice.

"Yes," Daltos dryly says. Not something he'd ever thought he'd do in his life but it's just happened. His life has been strange, for a while now. Still, he's not going to complain (even if his life could be much better).

"Ah, so I'm not dreaming." Zylus unsteadily sits up straight, rubbing at his left eye as he stops leaning against Daltos. He blinks, now looking slightly more wide awake. He glances at Daltos. Daltos calmly glances back. 

The two of them eventually lean in. After a moment, the two of them lean back. 

"So," Zylus says in a slightly embarrassed voice, looking away, "That just happened."

Daltos nods, silent and numb with surprise because he's not sure if it'd been him or Zylus who'd started it. The surprise is replaced with pure, unbridled rage in the next second. The alcohol's done a number on him, including the ability to reign in his temper.

"Zylus," He says, forcing himself to sound calm as rage consumes the last of his self-control.

"Yes?" Zylus innocently turns his head to look at him.

Daltos punches him. Zylus grunts in pain as he's thrown back from the force of it. He puts a hand out to catch himself. His other hand goes straight to his face where a bruise is already forming.

While he's reeling, Daltos gets to his feet, jumping off the rooftop. He manages to land on both feet before storming off somewhere. The shadows being cast by the buildings eats him up, leaving no trace of him behind.

It's only after Daltos has gone that Zylus finally climbs to his feet, the side of his face fiercely throbbing. His hand comes away clean.

The alcohol in his system is beginning to smother the pain and override his capacity to feel anything. He doesn't know what he should be feeling. Rage? Shock? Guilt? Shame? Probably something along the lines of the latter two.

It'd been a stupid idea. A very, very, stupid idea.

He climbs down the ladder (without falling off it somehow), making his way back to the building.

The bedroom is empty. Zylus fears for one powerful moment that Daltos might have left T-Bone Junction or BebopVox had interfered. There's the possibility BebopVox had seen what had happened on the rooftop, interpreted it as an attack- _no_. BebopVox knows not to harm Daltos.

Zylus messages BebopVox, having to concentrate more than he normally should to make his message coherent. Once he realizes he'd included his thoughts as part of the message, he doesn't bother to edit them out.

> Bebop, where's Daltos? Also, if you see him leaving town, just bring him back. Please don't hurt him, even if you saw him punch me.

He sends it and sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing at the bruise on his face. The 'numbness' is beginning to subside, dragging along with it his ability to stay awake. Five seconds later, BebopVox reports in as Zylus is fighting to stay awake to receive it.

> He is still in town. He is spending the night in another building.

The words blur since he’s removed his monocle but he succeeds in reading it. He manages to send one last message before passing out on the bed, feeling like a complete and utter emotional wreck on the inside.

> Keep an eye on him. I'll talk to him tomorrow once I wake up.

\--

\- // PLAYING ECHO // -

Day 94 of having crash landed on Pandora.

All three attempts to 'negotiate' with Zylus have ended in failure. Despite my initial expectations, Zylus is still alive and remains in possession of the A.I. Core. He is currently in Hollow Point. He thinks he's hidden from me. I'm more than happy to let him think that. 

I ripped out the bars on my head after somebody suggested during a meeting that I'm intentionally screwing everybody over again, based on some bullshit notion that I'm still taking orders from Dahl. 

I don't think anybody will suggest anything like that again, now that I've swiftly dealt with them. It'll take a while before the wound completely heals over but I can wait. It's going to leave a hell of a scar but that's nothing new.

Waiting is what probably got us into this situation in the first place, come to think of it.

...Zylus, if you'd waited just a little longer and heard me out, you could have been a Bandit Lord as well and we'd have fixed this fucking frigate by now and gotten off this fucking planet. 

_You fucking idiot_.

\- // END OF ECHO RECORDING REACHED.

USER HAS ENDED ECHO RECORDING PLAYBACK // -

\--

Zylus still feels like an emotional wreck when he wakes up. When the full force of last night's events hits him, he considers staying where he is for the next three hours if it means not having to deal with Daltos. He's comfortable on the bed even though he hadn't bothered changing clothes before sleeping.

The bruise on his face is still present. The skin where the bruise is remains unbroken but it still feels tender when he presses a finger to it. Either Daltos had been holding back due to being drunk or he'd taken that punch well.

Knowing that the more time he spends procrastinating, the higher the chances of Daltos actually successfully skipping town. Feeling like he's walking to his doom, Zylus gets up. His hangover is less severe than he'd expected since he's blessed with only a mild headache. Still, he spends more time than he should preparing to find Daltos. 

BebopVox updates him periodically about Daltos' whereabouts after the standard morning greeting.

Once Zylus has eaten and drank something, he heads off. He is unsure of what to expect as he slowly climbs the ladder to the top of the building. He'd come to this building based off BebopVox' latest update (conclusion, rather) that Daltos is smoking on the rooftop. He hasn't moved from the building at all. 

BebopVox can't actually see the rooftop since it sits just out of range of the cameras. BebopVox had seen the smoke rising into the air even if they didn't see Daltos in person. Zylus has to briefly wonder if Daltos had chosen this building on purpose because of that. 

Daltos is indeed smoking on top of the building, looking like he hasn't had much sleep. He seems worn out and on edge, leaning against a wall. He's standing rather than sitting. 

It's impossible for Zylus to hide his approach from him. Daltos turns away after his eyes briefly flick up to the bruise on Zylus' face. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth but doesn't say anything.

"We need to talk," Zylus begins as calmly as he can when his nerves are on high alert. He already has a vague idea of how things will go down and end (hint: it doesn't look good). Every interaction between them had been a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and when it hadn't, simply delayed it.

"And you need to _fuck off_ ," Daltos snaps, his words cutting.

Zylus knows that he's the subject of Daltos' hostility, regardless of whether or not he's being looked at directly. It feels like newly sharpened knives are being pointed straight at him. It's a subtle warning that automatically sets off more red flags at the back of Zylus' mind.

He refuses to back down this time.

"What happened last night-" He tries again, his temper threatening to slip its leash. He's trying to be civil but Daltos doesn't appear to give a shit (possibly remembering the last time he'd tried to be).

Daltos isn't having any of it.

"You got some nerve, thinking we can pick up where we left off, just like that." Daltos lets out a short, harsh laugh, actually turning to properly face him with a scornful look. "Have you conveniently forgotten that it's your fault we ended up on this planet? Don't let me stop you from trying to pretend everything's fine between us when it'll never be."

Zylus stares at him for a long moment. His mind is racing to pick apart his words but it only latches onto one thing (and everything else becomes insignificant).

" _My fault_?" Zylus blinks, this temper slipping free and lacing itself into his words. "What do you mean it's _my fault_?" He snaps back, almost shouting.

That immediately snatches and holds Daltos' attention. He pushes off the wall to storm over, stopping just short of an arm's length away from Zylus. His expression is thunderous. The air around them starts to become charged from the sheer animosity between them.

"If you'd just listened to me in the first place, we wouldn't be here on this fucking planet!" Daltos retorts, matching Zylus in volume.

"What sort of _idiot_ goes and makes deals with convicts to try to disregard direct orders-"

"What orders? There weren't any orders left!" Daltos scoffs. "Oh, and I'm apparently an _idiot_ for trying to save us both from being lynched by everybody on board the frigate-"

Zylus doesn't want to hear the rest because he knows. How many times had it gone through his mind over the years? It's so much more worse to hear it from Daltos. He moves to grab Daltos, to tell him to _stop_ , he already fucking knows but Daltos smacks his arm aside.

In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea to reach out to a pissed off Daltos.

Daltos' elbow cracks against the side of Zylus' head, right on top of the silver bars. Pain flares up at the site, causing his vision to swim briefly. Zylus staggers back, gingerly touching his forehead in mild shock.

His hand comes away in red as something warm and wet trickles down the left side of his face. His gaze drifts from the blood on his fingers to Daltos.

Daltos drops the cigarette he's holding and nonchalantly crushes it under his heel. Zylus wipes the blood on his hand onto his jacket, not caring if it leaves a stain (just to show how far gone he is to not care about such a thing).

The two of them circle one another, slowly, keeping enough distance between each other. The jagged silence drags on as the tension continues to rise; they can feel the moment it boils over and the air crackles as the two lunge at each other.

Zylus doesn't remember what exactly happens as the next five minutes consists of them trying to kill each other in the most straightforward, brutal fashion possible.

He does remember taking one heavy blow to the ribs, doubling over in pain and leaving himself open. Cursing at his lack of a shield (having removed it to prevent electrocuting himself), he tries to correct his stance but he's a little too late.

Just like that, Daltos slams him against the nearby wall. One of his hands closes around Zylus' throat. His knee painfully pins one of Zylus' hands to the wall. Zylus tries to punch him with his free hand but Daltos simply grabs it and bends it back at a painful angle.

The slightest pressure is applied to Zylus' throat as a warning.

He goes still, almost every part of his body aching in some way. He knows Daltos' body is aching as well. Zylus had dished out just as much pain as he'd received. He's pleased to see he can see his handiwork on Daltos in one way or another, since Daltos isn't wearing a shield either.

Having expected the worse, he's surprised when Daltos leans in without loosening his hold on him.

"You asked me how it felt to rip the bars from my forehead," Daltos softly murmurs, his voice right by Zylus' ear. "Now's a good time for you to experience that pain, first-hand." He draws back, his expression determined.

He manipulates Zylus' hand, forcing it into position.

Zylus struggles, but Daltos is stronger than him, far stronger; he can actually feel the stinging slivers of pain as his own fingers slide into the tear in his forehead. They press against the raw tissue there to find the metal edge of the implants in his forehead.

The first bar being removed is complete and utter agony. The bar refuses to budge until Daltos applies more force. With a deep-seated sense of internal horror, Zylus realizes he can feel it start to surrender as it's slowly ripped free from the skin it's attached to.

The surgeons had done their job well, but even their handiwork can't stand up to brute, physical force.

Each millimeter of the bar being freed sends a crippling wave of fresh pain crashing through Zylus' head, wiping all of his thoughts from his mind. His fingers slip on fresh blood, the joints of his fingers clumsily bumping against bone as Daltos continues to direct him to keep pulling. 

The blood continues to trickle down his face and neck, a steady stream of bright red.

It's starting to stain his shirt under his jacket. It's a distant, minute concern in the constant haze of the worst pain he's ever been through in his entire life. The only other instance of pain being this bad had been when his right eye had started to fail him. Back then, his right eye had slowly filled up with blood until it'd become too much, tendrils of bright red snaking across his vision.

Now somebody's attempting to drive a molten, solid steel rod into his head and is succeeding. The pain bores its way through his skull, a constant pressure that has nowhere to escape to. It's viciously clawing and scraping at the inside of his brain in vain as it tries to find some means of leaving.

Zylus draws in shuddering, shallow breaths that are mingled with low sounds of pain. If he could talk, he would have sworn at or begged Daltos to stop. Daltos is relentless, his motions deliberately slow so that Zylus never quite passes out and is forced to stay awake.

The most Zylus can do is squeeze his eyes shut, the pain searing every single nerve in his head to the point where he can't tell the difference between it and him.

Metal dings close by his feet, a muffled, distant chime that parts the haze of pain with a second of blissful, sweet relief. It's replaced by the return of more pain in the next second. The pain comes and goes, a steady pulse as if it has a life of its own.

It's less overwhelming but it still makes Zylus weak at the knees. He's only being held up by Daltos' hand on his throat and the wall he's leaning against.

Daltos' knee is no longer pinning his other hand but he can't even lift it to do anything to free himself. The pain is still incapacitating him even as his mind struggles to piece itself back together. He's dully aware that prying the first bar free hadn't been effortless for Daltos, Daltos' labored breathing out of sync with his.

When Zylus slowly opens his eyes, the vision on his left is drenched with red, lending a colored, surreal tint to the world. Through his right eye, he can see that Daltos still looks determined even as he bleeds out from the wounds Zylus had dealt him earlier.

Upon seeing Zylus opening his eyes, he shifts. Zylus can feel Daltos manipulating his fingers in preparation to yank the second bar free.

In the moment where the pain is at its weakest, granting him a moment of clarity, Zylus accesses his HUD. Only a single word is relayed: help. He closes his eyes, hoping that BebopVox gets it. 

His own fingers slide back into the tear in his forehead just as the sounds of Loaders flying draw close. He dares to crack his right eye open (his left remaining shut). Two Loaders appear over the rooftop he and Daltos are standing on. Zylus has never been so relieved to see them before.

They land with creaks of metal, moving towards them in a synchronized march.

He can feel Daltos letting go of his bloody hand to digistruct a gun. Daltos is a few seconds too late as one of the Loaders is already gripping him by the arms. It forcibly drags Daltos off Zylus. The other catches Zylus when he falls. Its lone eye automatically travels to the wound on his head. 

A message pops up in Zylus' HUD. He shakily opens his HUD.

> I am sorry.

Zylus is silent but he manages a pained smile that fades soon after.

"I'm fine," He says but it comes out sounding weak. "Thank you." Still, he's grateful that BebopVox had shown up before the second bar could be pulled out.

There's something he has to do now that he's free. He gathers up every bit of remaining energy to stand up on his own two feet. Everything _hurts_ , his head most of all and his heart, second. The Loader's hands anxiously hover on either side of of him, ready to catch him if he stumbles.

Zylus limps over to Daltos, who is steadily watching him. Daltos hasn't bothered putting up a fight. The Loader's fingers are digging firmly into both his arms, keeping him trapped. Zylus instructs BebopVox to keep holding onto him. BebopVox complies, the Loader going still as if failure to comply meant death.

He stops in front of Daltos. One of Zylus' hands reaches up so that his fingers curl around Daltos' throat. As he does so, he can barely make out Daltos' rapid, fluttering pulse through his sense of touch.

He badly wants to strangle him but that wouldn't give him the satisfaction he desires if he ends Daltos' life in that manner. 

Warm blood drips from Daltos' split lip, down his neck. The drops spill down the back of Zylus' hand, following his arm. It stains his sleeve but he doesn't care.

One of his fingers brushes against a half-healed mark he'd left behind on Daltos' throat (they'd been so bored on that one night, and one thing had led to another). He adjusts his grip so that his fingertips find the underside of Daltos' jaw, pressing up against it so that Daltos can't move his head.

Something inside of him painfully balks at what he's going to do. Zylus forcibly snuffs it out like a candle burning far too brightly for its own good.

"You're like that Vault Hunter, Lalna. Couldn't win a fight on your own without backup," Daltos coldly observes.

Zylus doesn't bother rising to that jab. He digistructs a pistol, one he hasn't used in a long time. The pistol's bright yellow and black paint job glints under the sun's rays. Daltos' gaze automatically travels to it.

A second's recognition at the elemental effect (corrosive, as the neon green lights dictates) plays out over his face before he manages to school his expression into a grim one.

The pistol's weight is comforting in Zylus' hand. He trains the barrel on Daltos. It hovers a few centimetres just in front of Daltos' right eye. 

Zylus is filled with a dreadful sense of unerring calm or he's gone completely numb, having left all of his emotions behind. It doesn't matter whichever one it is. Revenge silently urges him to pull the trigger, to close the door on this sad, sorry state of affairs that should have ended on the frigate years ago.

If he pulls the trigger, he'll deal the same wound that Daltos had inflicted on him. The difference between back then and now is that at this range, the bullet will go straight through Daltos' skull instead of grazing any part of his body. 

Daltos looks far too calm, his grim expression having faded into resignation. It looks strange on him, as if he'd accepted his fate long ago.

"Do it," He softly murmurs, looking straight at Zylus.

There's no turning back if he does this. He takes a moment to steel himself (because if he succeeds, it's not just Daltos he's losing; a part of him will be laid to rest at the same time). His finger curls around the trigger, his aim unwavering. 

The loud crack of the pistol rings out through the air.

The bullet embeds into the brick wall behind Daltos and the Loader holding him hostage. Acid eats at the wall with a sizzling sound that soon fades, leaving a sizable hole in said wall behind.

Daltos blinks as Zylus takes his hand off his throat. Zylus dismisses the Loaders with a wave of his hand. The one holding Daltos releases him. They step back on standby. Daltos massages both his sore arms (he can feel the bruises through his jacket) before one of his hands comes up to do the same for his throat.

Bruises are blossoming there from the force of Zylus' grip (contrasting nicely with his own earlier treatment of Zylus). The pistol in Zylus' hand vanishes back into his inventory. He turns away so that Daltos can't see his face.

Now facing the horizon, Zylus runs both hands through his hair as he walks to the rooftop's edge, stopping at the railing. Daltos moves to stand next to him even though he'd rather be walking off in the opposite direction.

"You couldn't do it after all," Daltos says, just loud enough for Zylus to hear him and what he can manage with a hoarse voice. He sounds just the littlest bit surprised to be alive. 

"I couldn't. Even after everything you did to make my life a living hell, just as much as I've made yours one too," Zylus says, his voice breaking in the middle of his words as he runs a hand over his face, clearly distressed. "I thought I could pull the trigger when the time came, but I _couldn't_."

Daltos is mercifully silent, simply listening.

"Letting you live and suffer with me is better," Zylus continues in a low, determined voice, using the back of his hand to wipe the blood from the left side of his face. When he smiles at Daltos, it doesn't reach his eyes. "I can deal with that much."

"Likewise." Daltos can accept that. "What now? We could..." He trails off, unwilling to say 'finish this'. They both know that they've long since passed the point where one or both of them being dead will satisfy any outstanding desire for revenge (if it still exists).

"Let's just talk," Zylus murmurs, "Until we're tired of talking."

"Sure. It's not like I'm going anywhere." Daltos moves to pick up the tiny, bloodstained silver bar from the rooftop. He hands it to Zylus.

Zylus silently accepts it, his fingers folding over it before it vanishes into his inventory. It settles into place next to Daltos' ECHO device.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic comes to about ~26,800 or so words and is one of the longer fics for borderlandscast. this is going to be a long ramble so bear with me as i try to articulate my thought process about what's going on in this fic. 
> 
> time passes differently between each scene in this fic (unless stated otherwise). the ending of this fic actually takes place in the future of 'the last vault hunter'. most of the events haven't quite happened yet in 'tlvh', so don't get too confused if the two pop up again and they appear to not have changed one bit.
> 
> the dynamic between zylus and daltos is one of the more complicated ones to be found in this au. for the most part, the two do blame each other when it's closer to that of the two being equally at fault. they just refuse to see it from the other person's pov but now that they've agreed to talk, hopefully they'll be able to work past that.
> 
> good luck figuring out the exact reason/s why the two hate each other's guts as the story progresses! it is wonderfully complicated since nothing with these two is ever simple.
> 
> i should clarify that yes, daltos and zylus did have a thing going on between them (aka, an actual romantic relationship) that predates the events of 'the last vault hunter' years ago. it is a major factor in how they've been able to coexist in the same location without killing each other sooner since they've been there before (i.e., sharing living quarters, working cooperatively in combat).
> 
> when i brainstormed the two characters, i originally planned to have them simply be old friends but during scene planning, i realized that the stakes simply weren't high enough. writing them as they are now gives the two of them additional layers to their motives, thoughts, opinions, relationship and whatnot.
> 
> i hope it's come through in my writing, even if you have to read between the lines to interpret some of it! i'm looking forward to writing these two again since they are both important to the plot of 'the last vault hunter'.
> 
> nobody (anybody who is currently alive, that is) in this au is straight! zylus and daltos as bisexual. daltos is aro while zylus is demiromantic. you're perfectly free to hc whatever you want, this is just what i rolled with when writing these two!
> 
> they're also not likely to start over again in regards to a relationship seeing as forgiveness is something that's impossible for the two of them at the moment. in the future? maybe. for now, the most they can manage is tolerance.
> 
> bebopvox goes by 'they/them' pronouns, since well. they're a military a.i. it is also entirely possible to refer to bebopvox by 'he/him/she/her' as well; zylus defaults to male pronouns sometimes while somebody like nanosounds might use 'she/her'. i'll upload bebopvox's profile the day after this fic is uploaded so keep an eye out for that!
> 
> bebopvox was also mentioned/referenced very briefly (blink and you'll miss it) in chapter seven of 'tlvh'. they were the ones causing the vault hunters to feel as if they were being watched! bebopvox sees directly through the cameras, so that's why that feeling came over the vault hunters. 
> 
> i think that's everything i wanted to ramble about so if you've read all of that, thanks for reading! the doodles are over [here](http://borderlandscast.tumblr.com/tagged/beyond-the-borderlands%3A-this-town-ain%27t-big-enough-for-the-two-of-us), as drawn by the stupendous siins! also thanks to teagstime for being an a+++ editor <3


End file.
